The Competition Bureau announced today that it will be commencing consultations on its Merger Enforcement Guidelines (“MEGS”), holding a series of roundtables to “explore the merits of revising the Merger Enforcement Guidelines”.
In making the announcement, the Bureau stated:
“The Merger Enforcement Guidelines which were issued in 2004, set out the framework the Bureau uses to evaluate the potential competitive effects of mergers.
The purpose of the roundtables will be to assess whether the guidelines accurately reflect current merger review practices at the Bureau and the potential impact of the recent publication of the revised Horizontal Merger Guidelines by the antitrust authorities in the United States, as well as other legal and economic developments.”
While Canada’s merger control regime was substantially amended in March, 2009, the changes were restricted to the pre-notification process, with the substantive framework for merger review in Canada remaining unchanged. See: Merger Control and Competition Act Amendments. If the MEGs are revised as a result of the Bureau’s new consultations, it will reflect continuing efforts by the Bureau to revise, update and further standardize its approach to the review of mergers in Canada, which has resulted in a number of recent changes over the past year, including a new policy on hostile transactions (see: Competition Bureau Publishes Policy Relating to Hostile Transactions) and a new draft Fee and Service Standards Handbook for mergers (see: Competition Bureau Issues New Draft Fee and Service Standards Handbook for Mergers for Comment).
As well, if the MEGs are updated to be consistent with new Horizontal Merger Guidelines recently issued by the U.S. DOJ and FTC (see: U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission Issue New Horizontal Merger Guidelines), this would represent one more step in aligning Canada’s merger control regime with that of its largest trading partner, the United States, which has included the adoption in Canada of a U.S.-style two-stage merger control regime – see: Canadian Merger Control).
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