BRIC Merger Control - The New Regulatory Frontier

Originally published in International In-house Counsel Journal Vol. 5, No. 19, Spring 2012, ¹

I. Introduction

Global M&A activity increasingly focuses on businesses with assets and/or sales in the BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India and China. From the end of May 2012, when the regime in Brazil becomes suspensory, each BRIC country will operate a mandatory pre-merger control regime requiring transactions that meet relevant thresholds to be notified to, and approved by, the local competition authority prior to closing. A new Russian regime came into force in January of this year, while the first functioning Indian regime came into force in June of last year. We have recently seen the Chinese competition authority intervening in international transactions, imposing conditions for clearance not imposed by other competition authorities. These developments create a new regulatory environment with additional hurdles for international transactions.