The Canadian government has lowered the 2021 thresholds
for both pre-merger notification under the Competition Act
and for pre-closing net benefit review of foreign investments under
the Investment Canada Act.
The pre-closing thresholds under both the Competition
Act and Investment Canada Act have been reduced for
2021, as a result of a decline in Canadian GDP in 2020.
Competition Act
The Competition Bureau has
announced that the 2021 pre-merger notification
transaction-size threshold will be decreased to $93M from the
current $96M. The 2021 threshold came into effect immediately
following publication in the
Canada Gazette Part 1 on February 13, 2021.
As a result, the Bureau must generally be given advance notice
of proposed transactions when:
