On 29 October 2019, the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) published a consultation on draft Simplified Merger Notification Procedure Guidelines.

The CCPC states that the Simplified Merger Notification Procedure (the Simplified Procedure) will lead to shorter review periods for relevant transactions.

The CCPC states that it will in principle apply the Simplified Procedure in the following circumstances:

1. where none of the parties are active in the same product or geographic market or upstream or downstream of each other; or
2. where parties are active in the same market, but their combined market share is less than 15%; or
3. where parties are active in a market upstream or downstream to each other, but the market share of each is less than 25%; or
4. where a party, which already has joint control over a company, is to acquire sole control over it.

Where the Simplified Procedure applies, the parties would not have to answer all of the questions on the CCPC merger notification form. In particular, the parties would not need to provide, in areas of overlap between them, information on their agreements, shareholdings, trade associations, suppliers, customers and competitors and their internal documents assessing the competitive effects of the proposed transaction.

However, the CCPC reserves the right to revert to the standard procedure and require full information at any point. The CCPC states that this may arise, for example, in transactions involving concentrated markets, maverick firms and pipeline products.
The deadline for responses to the consultation is 29 November 2019.

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