What Happened:
e. the 10
th Amendment Act to the German Act Against Restraints of Competition (ARC) entered into force.
In addition to introducing stricter abuse control, in particular over digital companies with a strong market position (so much so that one may refer to the act as the “
ARC Digitisation Act”) and effecting changes to procedural rules and cartel prosecution, the new law also introduces substantive changes in merger control rules which may bring significant relief for international transactions. More information on the ARC Digitisation Act and other altered antitrust/competition rules will follow in this blog.
The thresholds of German merger control have traditionally been very low in comparison to other international regimes. The German legislator has now decided to significantly increase the domestic turnover filing thresholds. Last week’s discussions in the German parliament and in its economic committee surprisingly resulted in even higher thresholds
KEY TAKEAWAYS
German merger control will see some major changes in 2021. Today, the German parliament adopted the draft
10
th Amendment to the German Act Against Restraints of Competition (
ARC). The new amendment to the ARC will come into force within the next few weeks and bring some significant changes:
Less control for small-scale M&A: The domestic filing thresholds will rise. As a result, fewer M&A deals will require an approval by the Federal Cartel Office (
FCO) than it is the case today.
More control for critical deals: The examination period for in-depth merger reviews will expand from four to five months, and additional merger control scrutiny will apply to acquisitions of certain companies even where the target does not meet the regular revenue thresholds.