Notification requirements and procedures

This Supplement identifies proposed amendments to the existing “informal clearance” procedure used by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for merger review in Australia. This Supplement adopts the defined terms used in the original Australia chapter of Merger Control Worldwide and is intended to replace section 3.1.3 and Figure 1 of the original Australia chapter.

Relevantly, the Trade Practices Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2005 (the “Dawson Bill”) referred to in section 1.1 of the original chapter was defeated in the Australian Senate in October 2005 and so has not been enacted into law. The Dawson Bill was intended to introduce a new formal merger clearance procedure that would operate in parallel with the existing informal clearance procedure in Australia. A political impasse is delaying the reintroduction of the merger reform provisions of the Dawson Bill into the Australian Parliament although it is likely to be reintroduced during 2006 or 2007.

Informal clearance

The third option is to seek informal clearance from the Commission for the merger on a confidential or non-confidential basis. If the Commission grants informal clearance to a merger, the parties to the merger obtain a “comfort letter”, which usually states that the Commission will not oppose the merger but reserves the right to do so should new information come to light. While a comfort letter is not binding on the Commission, it is rare for the Commission to grant informal clearance and subsequently oppose the merger.