The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is consulting on draft guidelines covering its assessment framework and process for the new merger regime.
RBB Economics has provided a short submission to the ACCC on its draft assessment guidelines, focusing on three economic aspects.
First, it highlights the absence of any reference to the well-established “ability, incentive and effect” framework in the discussion of conglomerate effects.
Second, it notes that the draft guidelines do not provide sufficient guidance to merging parties and their advisors on the application of the new wording in the SLC test and in particular on how the term “entrenching” market power might be interpreted in the context of conglomerate mergers.
Third, it argues that the guidelines should reaffirm the important role of market definition, and the HMT specifically, in merger assessments rather than relegate the discussion of those important concepts to an Appendix.
