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ARTICLE · 27 MAY 2020

Competition Bureau Releases Model Timing Agreement: What Businesses Need To Know

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On May 21, 2020, the Competition Bureau released its Model Timing Agreement for Merger Reviews involving Efficiencies, which includes guidance intended to inform businesses and their advisors ...

CanadaAntitrust/Competition Law
Chris Margison
Chris Margison
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On May 21, 2020, the Competition Bureau (the "Bureau") released its Model Timing Agreement for Merger Reviews involving Efficiencies (the "Model Timing Agreement"), which includes guidance intended to inform businesses and their advisors of the Bureau's approach to the analysis of efficiencies claims, the circumstances in which the Bureau will consider efficiencies claims and the timelines applicable to the Bureau's review of efficiencies claims (the "Bulletin"). While the need for the Model Timing Agreement is debatable, the Bulletin does provide helpful guidance for the small subset of mergers in which the efficiencies defence is ultimately invoked.

This blog post discusses several key aspects of the Bulletin, including the efficiencies defence, the Model Timing Agreement and the types of information that merging parties will need to produce to substantiate their efficiencies claims. It also identifies and describes ten key takeaways for businesses going forward.

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