ARGENTINA ANTITRUST – CHANGE OF THRESHOLDS FOR MERGER CONTROL NOTIFICATIONS

ARGENTINA ANTITRUST – CHANGE OF THRESHOLDS FOR MERGER CONTROL NOTIFICATIONS

Resolution 13/2020 of the Secretary of Internal Commerce has changed the thresholds after which the transactions have to be notified. Such Resolution raised the value of the “mobile unit”, set forth in Article 85of Law 27,442, to Pesos 40.61 (around USD 0.67).

Therefore, the joint Argentine turnover of the acquiring group and the target has to be more than Pesos 4,061 million, which are around USD 67 Million according to the March 10, 2020 exchange rate. Please take into consideration that Argentine annual inflation could be, in principle, around 50%. Therefore, the amount in USD of the thresholds could vary significantly.

Also, the exemption for “minor transactions” has been raised. Therefore, even if the Pesos 4,061 million threshold has been reached, those transactions or group of transactions in the same market within 12 months whose price (or allocated price) and value of the assets (or imports in case there are no assets in the country) is less than Pesos 812.2 million (around USD 13.4 million) or less of Pesos 2,436.6 million (around USD 40.2 million), if the group of transactions occurred during the last 36 months, are exempted from notification. Please note that the present opinion of the authority is that if any of the criteria (price or value of the assets) exceeds the thresholds, the transaction has to be notified.

For more information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

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