ADNOC's Covestro deal gets conditional European Commission greenlight

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Abu Dhabi state oil firm ADNOC has received the EU's conditional greenlight for its 14.7 billion euro ($17 billion) bid for German chemicals company Covestro, the European Commission said on Friday.

It said the approval is conditional upon full compliance with the commitments offered by the parties, including ADNOC's proposed adaptation of its articles of association and sharing of Covestro's patents in the area of sustainability with some other market participants.

People with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters last week that they expected the deal to get approved.

The Commission, the EU's competition enforcer, restarted its investigation into the deal on October 24 after stopping the clock on September 3 while waiting for requested information, according to an update on its site last Wednesday.

ADNOC last month offered to change its articles of association to address EU concerns on its unlimited state guarantee, and also pledged to retain Covestro's intellectual property in Europe.

It subsequently tweaked the latter element following feedback from rivals and customers.

The deal, ADNOC's biggest acquisition yet and one of the largest foreign takeovers of an EU company by a Gulf state, has sparked EU concerns that the company may be using state subsidies to acquire Covestro.

($1 = 0.8575 euros)

(Reporting by Alessandro Parodi; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)