Italy Aims To Change Merger Notification Thresholds

 After 894 days of discussion, the Italian Parliament has approved, on 2 August 2017, what should be the "annual" competition act —  a series of measures that should be adopted on a yearly basis to promote competition. Among the disparate set of measures contained in the new law, concerning a range of different sectors such as, inter alia, insurance, transport, liberal professions, tourism, banks and pharmacies, article 1, para 177, amends the merger notification thresholds for Italy. The new thresholds will be:

• combined aggregate domestic turnover of all the undertakings concerned exceeding 492 million euros; and
• aggregate turnover in Italy of at least two of the undertakings concerned exceeding 30 million euros.