The approval by the Federal Court will enable Whitehaven to proceed with acquiring all of Aston’s shares, with today marking the last day of trading in Aston shares.

The court approval follows on from shareholder approval of the deal, which was received on Monday.

The proposed “merger of equals” was announced on December 12 and will create Australia’s largest independent coal mining company.

Tinkler, who has a 32% stake in Aston is expected to gain significant value from the deal.

Upon the merger, Whitehaven will acquire unlisted exploration and development company Boardwalk, which owns four coal exploration assets across New South Wales and Queensland.

The merger of the three companies will create a coal company with saleable production of 6 million tonnes per annum of coal in the 2012 financial year.

It is expected to increase to 25Mtpa by FY2016 and will lead to a commanding position in the growing Gunnedah Basin of NSW.

In addition, the combined group would have JORC compliant resources of 2451Mt and JORC compliant recoverable reserves of 842Mt.

Under the scheme of arrangement, Aston shareholders will receive 1.89 Whitehaven shares for each Aston share they hold.

Whitehaven will pay a fully franked special dividend of $0.50 per share to its shareholders.