The Competition Council (CC) of Latvia has developed Merger Notification Drafting Guidelines to improve the merger notification procedure, as well as for businesses to clear and ease the process of preparing the merger notification.
The current merger notification review practice of the CC and multiple businesses’ surveys show that for entrepreneurs it is often hard to prepare a correct and complete merger notification. Thus, to ease the preparation process, the CC has developed the Merger Notification Drafting Guidelines.
The guidelines contain recommendations for possible solutions on the most common uncertainties concerning preparation of merger notifications. For example, such obscurity is a description of the relevant market, therefore the CC explains the main criteria and aspects that must be taken into account for businesses to prepare a correct and complete merger notification.
The CC stresses that timely reported mergers and provision of all the required information is important for the authority to assess the impact on the competition in a shorter term than official four months. Furthermore, the CC offers pre-merger consultations inviting entrepreneurs to consult with representatives of the competition authority and to clear all questions regarding the required information or the obligation to submit merger notifications.
Merger control is a significant part of the competition law and provides protection of public welfare from those mergers that may affect the competition by changing the market structure and limit consumers’ possibilities to choose the best offers in price and quality.
During the previous two years, the CC has assessed approximately 30 merger notifications in almost 20 different sectors and in a more than 2.5 billion euros large segment of the Latvian national economy.
Merger Notification Drafting Guidelines (in Latvian)