Business Opinion:What has happened to the Irish Takeover Panel? The guardian of shareholders' rights generally adopts a low profile - to the point of invisibility - in most takeovers, but it has leapt centre stage during Ryanair's bid for Aer Lingus, which now appears in its closing stages.

Since the bid was launched, the panel has sprung into action more than half a dozen times, pulling up both sides for various breaches of the takeover code. The deputy chief executive of Ryanair, Michael Cawley, got his wrist slapped for saying they would not increase their bid, while Aer Lingus's chief executive, Dermot Mannion, was similarly chastised for saying they would never accept a bid.

Other misdemeanours dealt with by the panel included Ryanair's assertion that every member of the Aer Lingus Employee Share Ownership Plan would gain €60,000 from the deal. The claim, the panel said, lacked detail and was based on undisclosed assumptions.

Aer Lingus also got a telling off for the use of a graph in its defence document, which the panel deemed was a profit forecast. Aer Lingus was also compelled to publish the details of cost-cutting plans referred to in the document.

And the panel's activities did not stop with the protagonists. Denis O'Brien was asked to clarify what he meant by supporting the staff when he bought a crucial stake in the company.

All of this activity stands in contrast to the panel's "hands off" approach in other hostile takeovers, most notably Jurys Doyle and Gresham Hotels.

Despite the Byzantine twists and turns in the tussle for control of Jurys, the panel only made one serious public intervention which was to rule that Precinct - one of the bidders - could not bid again, having ruled itself out of running earlier in the contest.

The panel's approach to the Gresham Hotel takeover was even more "hands off". Despite some very serious allegations being made about concert parties, the panel was only stirred into action at a late stage. And in the end, its threat to hold hearings into the concert party allegations was superfluous (other than to perhaps have convinced some of the parties involved to stop messing about).

In fact, the panel's apparent reluctance to take any action in the Gresham case led to considerable criticism about its effectiveness. The defence put forward was that unlike its UK counterpart - with which it is inevitably compared - the Irish panel has to proceed in a much more cautious manner as reflects its statutory rather than self-regulatory nature.

So what is behind the new "all action" approach being adopted by the takeover panel in the Ryanair bid?

Has there been some change in the legislation that has given it new powers? Or has there been some change of personnel that has induced a more proactive attitude?

The answer to both these questions is sadly no. As is the response to the other explanation being put forward by some observers, which is that the Government's involvement in the Ryanair bid - as a shareholder in Aer Lingus - served to focus the mind of the panel. Given the horrendous embarrassment that would have been caused to the Government if Aer Lingus had been taken over within weeks of its privatisation, it rather behoves the takeover panel to ensure that the Ryanair bid is done by the numbers.

Apparently, the explanation is somewhat more prosaic and ultimately disappointing.

It appears the main reason why the panel has been so active in the Ryanair/Aer Lingus battle is simply that it has received so many complaints from the two sides.

The "total war" tactics adopted by Ryanair from the outset has meant that any suspected infringement of the code - no matter how trivial - has been referred to the panel for adjudication. And given the nature of these things, Aer Lingus has responded in kind.

The result has been the unprecedented number of public rulings and, one presumes, a similar number of behind the scenes adjudications.

While this has no doubt been the cause of much amusement to everybody other than those having to pay the bills of the lawyers involved - the shareholders in Ryanair and Aer Lingus - it is fundamentally bad news.

In confirms that light touch, "hands off" mentality still pervades the Irish Takeover Panel and there is no new dawn of a proactive regulation.

This in effect means that it is still very unlikely to intervene in a takeover, unless one of the parties involved makes a substantiated complaint.

And that, as we have seen in the past, is not good news.