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Final joint guidance on new transaction value threshold in the merger control has been published.

Vienna/Bonn, 20.8.2018, Dr. Theodor Thanner, Director General of the Austrian Federal Competition Authority (AFCA) and Prof. Dr. Konrad Ost, Vice President of the German Bundeskartellamt presented the final joint guidance on the new transaction value threshold at the Competition Talk of the AFCA in Vienna on 9.7.2018.

The AFCA and the German Bundeskartellamt published a consultation version of the joint guidance on the transaction value threshold in May 2018. In total 13 comments have been submitted to the AFCA and the German Bundeskartellamt. These comments have been taken into consideration and have been incorporated in the guidance.

Theodor Thanner, Director General of the AFCA: “With this joint guidance the AFCA and the German Bundeskartellamt embarked on the path of transparency in order to create legal certainty for undertakings. The joint guidance on the transaction value threshold gives an excellent overview about the definition of the consideration, how the definition „domestic operations“ needs to be interpreted. Last but not least the application is being explained with some practical examples.”

The Austrian Cartel Act and the German Competition Act determine that mergers have to be notified if the transaction value is higher than 200 million Euros in Austria or 400 million Euros in Germany. So far, it was only necessary to notify mergers to the Competition Authorities if certain turnover thresholds were met.

The aim of the implementation of the transaction value threshold is to analyse mergers, which do not reach the turnover thresholds but show a certain market significance due to the transaction value. This is particularly important in technology-characterised markets in order to prevent the occurrence of monopolies.

The English Version of the joint guidance:

For more information please visit our German website