Australian merger control reform: new thresholds risk uncertainty and over-capture

On 30 August 2024, Treasury released proposed notification thresholds for Australia's forthcoming mandatory and suspensory merger control regime, which was announced earlier this year, consulted on in July, and is proposed to commence on 1 January 2026.

Treasury proposes that parties will be required to notify a merger where the target business or asset has material connection to Australia and meets certain revenue or transaction value thresholds, or certain market concentration thresholds. Treasury's objective is "to ensure the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is informed of mergers most likely to be anti-competitive, while minimising the overall compliance burden on businesses". Our initial view is that the monetary thresholds are likely to over-capture transactions for review and the market concentration thresholds will be challenging to apply in practice, leading to conservative over-reporting from merger parties.