Pre-merger notification and the Trade Practices Act 1974
Office of Regulation Review submission
This submission was released in February 1995. The submission assesses the Trade Practices Commission’s need for more, and more timely, information from firms intending to merge.
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Pre-merger Notification and the Trade Practices Act 1974 (PDF 263.2 KB)Contents
Preliminaries
Cover, Contents
1 Introduction
2 The Treasury Pre-merger Notification Proposal
3 Problems with Merger Oversight
3.1 Insufficient notice — midnight mergers
3.2 Excessive litigation costs
3.3 The inability of a divestment order to restore competition
4 Concerns with the Proposed Scheme
4.1 There are few ‘midnight mergers’
4.2 The proposed asset threshold
4.3 Does minority ownership deliver effective corporate control?
What is control?
When does a minority interest offer control?
Control thresholds in other legislation
4.4 Costs of pre-merger notification
Costs to merging parties
The efficiency of the market for corporate control
Opportunity costs to the TPC’s enforcement program
5 Some Less Burdensome Approaches to Pre-merger Notification
5.1 A shorter notification period
5.2 A corporate duty to notify
6 Conclusion
References
Printed copies
