MANILA -- The Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) has raised the minimum value for businesses to notify the antitrust body on their merger and acquisition (M&A) deals.
The Commission decided to increase the mandatory M&A threshold to PHP6 billion from PHP5.6 billion for the Size of the Person (SoP), and to PHP2.4 billion from PHP2.2 billion for the Size of Transaction (SoT).
This is effective on March 1, 2020.
Under its Memorandum Circular No. 18-001, the PCC annually reviews notification thresholds to consider the country’s current size of actual notifications, gross domestic product, and inflation.
“Adjustment of the thresholds ensures that potentially anti-competitive M&As are subject to compulsory notification and review, while those that are less likely to pose competition concerns are excluded,” PCC chairperson Arsenio Balisacan said in a statement Monday.
Balisacan said raising the thresholds for mandatory review allows the Commission to “efficiently use its resources” to other competition enforcement elements, such as conducting cartel investigations, market monitoring, and motu proprio merger review, or studying a merger and acquisition transaction on its own initiative.
PCC reviews merger and acquisition transaction in terms of size of the person, or checking if one of the parties involved in the deal breached the threshold based on assets or revenue in the local market.
The size of transaction is based on the aggregate value of the acquiring assets.
The Commission said it received a total of 207 transactions amounting to PHP3.6 trillion.
The PCC approved 192 of the deals and blocked one transaction. (PNA)
