Introducing De Minimis+
The original De Minimis Exemption was introduced in 2011 and later amended by way of a
notification in 2016, exempted transactions from a notification
requirement if the target enterprise (whose control, shares, voting
rights or assets were being acquired) had assets of not more than
INR 3.5 billion (~USD 54 million) OR turnover of
not more than INR 10 billion (~USD 154 million). Whilst this was a
valuable attribute of the Indian merger control regime, it had
certain limitations – the De Minimis Exemption was limited to
only acquisitions and was calculated on the basis of the total
value of assets or turnover of the selling enterprise.
On 29 March 2017, in a major move towards improving India's
"Ease of Doing Business Ranking", the Government of India
has made significant changes to the Indian merger control regime by
way of a notification (De Minimis+
Notification) issued by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs
(MCA).
