Canada's Competition Bureau releases revised Merger Review Process Guidelines
Susan M. Hutton and Michael Laskey -
On January 11, 2012, Canada’s Competition Bureau published revised Merger Review Process Guidelines, updating the Bureau’s approach to the administration of the merger review process under the Competition Act in light of experience gained since the implementation of the two-stage U.S.-style notification process in 2009.
In particular, the Guidelines discuss: (i) the statutory waiting periods which apply to mergers that exceed certain thresholds set out in the Act; (ii) the two-stage notification process including the use of Supplementary Information Requests (SIRs), similar to the “second request” process in the United States; (iii) the use of timing agreements as an alternative means of obtaining information about a transaction and (iv) provide the Bureau’s view of how parties should conduct their searches for documents and information when responding to a SIR, in the form of sample search instructions.
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