The AFR's economics editor, John Kehoe, writes that the ACCC is engaging with Treasury about strengthening merger laws to make it easier for the regulator to block takeovers it believes will reduce competition and harm consumers through higher prices.
Kehoe notes that in a recent submission to Treasury, Arnold Bloch Leibler argues the ACCC’s existing merger regime is working well for the vast majority of merger clearance applications.
He includes the following quote from the submission, citing ABL competition partners Zaven Mardirossian and Matthew Lees, and lawyer Daniel Kelly as its authors: “[It] achieves the objective of preventing the completion of anti-competitive mergers in an efficient and low-cost manner” .
“It is a flexible and informal process. It is an efficient and low-cost way for parties to a proposed merger to obtain the ACCC’s views on a proposed transaction before proceeding with it, without the additional costs associated with preparing evidence in a legally admissible form.”
To read the AFR article, click here.
To read the full submission, click here.
