Serial Killers? Australia’s New Merger Rules Take Aim At Roll‑ups

This article is a continuation of Walter Baden’s May 2025 article outlining Australia’s move to mandatory merger notification in 2026. That regime is now in place.

This article focuses on how the regime operates in practice for serial or “creeping” acquisitions, particularly roll‑up strategies. Multiple smaller deals can now be aggregated, triggering notification and delaying completion until cleared by Australia’s competition regulator, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

Against that backdrop, the key feature for roll‑ups is aggregation. Acquisitions in the same or related markets over a rolling three‑year period are bundled such that the regulatory lens no longer rests on individual transactions viewed in isolation. Instead, patterns of acquisition are examined collectively, reflecting the ACCC’s policy view that incremental consolidation can reshape markets just as effectively as a single large transaction, only more quietly.