Should the Pre-Notification of Mergers Be Compulsory in Australia?

Australia is unusual among the world's antitrust jurisdictions in not making the pre-notification of mergers compulsory. However, if the parties are concerned that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is likely to object to the merger, there are strong incentives for them to notify the ACCC as the regulator has developed a strong reputation for imposing heavy costs on parties that fail to notify such mergers. The result is a system of quasi-compulsory notification that creates the strongest incentives for parties to notify the ACCC of those proposals to which it is most likely to object. This study analyses data extracted from the ACCC's merger database and the empirical results are consistent with this characterisation. Mergers reported voluntarily by the parties are found to experience longer delays to completion, and are more likely to be challenged by the ACCC, when compared with a sample of all other mergers assessed by the regulator. The results suggest that non-compulsory notification allows the parties themselves to pre-sort the proposed merger vis-à-vis its interest to the ACCC. Copyright 2004 The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research.