Observations re the merger control regime in China in 2010

At the brink of the New Year, it is timely to take stock of the antitrust merger control work we've undertaken for our clients and provide some observations re the merger control regime in China:

• In 2010, MOFCOM has accepted more than 110 merger filings (see our article dated 20 December 2010 entitled "2010 Merger Control Stocktake – China".
• In the same year, we have represented clients vis-à-vis a sizable proportion of these 110 merger filings. During the second half of this year, MOFCOM cleared several merger filings (all of which are large-scale cross-jurisdictional transactions) within Phase 1 of the merger review period (i.e. 30 calendar days).
• In general, MOFCOM takes between 2 to 6 weeks to decide whether to formally accept a merger filing (often referred to as the "pre-acceptance review period"). This year, we observed that MOFCOM has streamlined this pre-acceptance review period (and that our filings are being formally accepted more swiftly).