Frankfurt-based Antitrust partner Sebastian Jungermann presented and discussed the recently introduced Size-of-the-Transaction test under the new German merger control law at the 45. FIW-Seminar, a prominent competition conference in Bonn, Germany. Since June 9, 2017, and in case the second domestic threshold of 5 million EUR is not triggered, a notification will be required if the value of the consideration received from the acquirer exceeds 400 million EUR and the target is active in Germany "to an appreciable extent". Since this new threshold in Germany is actually based on the Size-of-the-Transaction Test under the U.S. Hart–Scott–Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, Sebastian introduced and explained the US system to compare and discuss both systems and its differences accordingly, together with other participants on the panel, which included officials from the German and Austrian competition authorities. A similar threshold will be introduced in the Austrian merger control regime shortly.
See PDF (Presentation in German)
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