TPG, Vodafone shares smashed after ACCC mistakenly publishes merger ruling a day early

The consumer watchdog has decided to oppose the proposed merger between TPG and Vodafone Hutchison Australia, sending the stock price of each company plummeting.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission was due to announce its ruling on Thursday, but inadvertently published the information on its mergers register briefly on Wednesday afternoon.

Shares in TPG fell by 14.81 per cent to $5.98 at 1.55pm while Hutchison dropped 37.5 per cent to 10¢.

The ACCC said it would publish a further media release shortly.

It had been reviewing the proposed merger since September.

Last December, the ACCC said that the merger would diminish competition by removing TPG as an independent competitor, but then in January TPG scrapped plans to build its own mobile network after the Federal government banned use of equipment from Chinese vendor Huawei.

AAP