COMPETITION COUNCIL INTRODUCES CHANGES TO MERGER NOTIFICATION PROCEDURE

Competition Council introduced changes to merger notification procedure made following discussions with business and legal communities, EC recommendations and the Council‘s current practice. The new merger notification procedure will come into force on 1 January 2016.

Changes of notification submission and assessment procedure include the following:

• more explanations on how to identify merger parties and calculate income properly;
• simplified submission of income statements;
• possibility not to submit information if the company cannot access it;
• public announcement of the anticipated merger’s summary;
• procedure of submitting commitments;
• new form of merger notification.

„We adopted the new merger notification procedure with regard to rapidly changing business environment, amendments of the EU merger regulations, law enforcement practice and the most frequent mistakes that occur in merger notifications. We publicly announced the project of the new merger notification procedure and received feedback – we hope that the new merger notification procedure will bring more clarity and legal certainty to the parties anticipating mergers“ – says Šarūnas Keserauskas, Chairman of the Council.