Where at least two companies merge or a company acquires shares in another company, if certain thresholds are exceeded, may result in the transaction having to be notified to one or more competition authorities. The purpose of merger control is to enable the competition authority to investigate the expected competitive effects of the merger or acquisition in advance in order to avert avoidable negative consequences for the markets before they even arise.

It is not always easy to determine (i) which transactions actually constitute a concentration, (ii) which companies are considered to be involved, (iii) which markets are affected in which way, and (iv) where the concentration in question should actually be notified.

Solving Drafting/Editing Problems

1. Uniformity: In case of notifications, it is particularly important to maintain the uniformity of market-specific terms. In this case, repeated use of words is better and even more “desirable” than using different technical terms for the same product. If too many new words are involved, the person processing the notification may have difficulty in understanding them, especially with regard to the precise activities of the involved parties.

2. Precision: It is very important to get descriptions and facts to the point and be very precise, i.e. do not write in nested sentences.

Contributor: Dominik Tyrybon

Example Country perspective regarding merger control (Austria): Since we draft 90% of our notifications in English, it is also important to submit a notification to the authority in “proper German language” (sounds ridiculous but can be a greater challenge in practice – especially due to non-German-English technical terms in technical sectors).