China’s top merger control regulator has formalized a pilot program that entrusted the review of simple cases to five provincial-level agencies.
Effective Aug. 1, the State Administration for Market Regulation, or SAMR, will continue entrusting the market supervision departments of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Chongqing and Shaanxi to review simplified merger reviews — a process piloted since August 2022.
During the three-year pilot, local agencies reviewed 1,288 deals — 54 percent of the total caseload — SAMR said in a statement issued following its formal adoption of the plan on July 31. The transactions involved mergers valued at more than 3 trillion yuan ($418 billion), it added.
“The pilot program has achieved remarkable results, and the current entrusted review mechanism is operating well,”
SAMR said.
The agency noted that the criteria for assigning cases and the division of geographic responsibility had proven reasonable, with review procedures running efficiently and smoothly.
Since 2022, the Beijing agency is responsible for deals relating to Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang; and the Shanghai counterpart for Shanghai and the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian, Jiangxi and Shandong.
The Guangdong regulator covers the provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan, while the Chongqing arm handles transactions relating to Chongqing, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan and Tibet.
The pilot also improved the efficiency of merger reviews and enhanced regulatory capacity, SAMR said. The provincial agencies, it noted, were closer to businesses and markets, enabling them to better serve notifying parties.
The decision to convert the pilot into a standardized and institutionalized entrustment system aims to ensure continuity and stability in antitrust merger control, improve review effectiveness and further refine a tiered and classified review framework, the agency said.
The mechanism exemplifies a requirement newly written into China’s amended Antimonopoly Law, which calls for the State Council’s antitrust enforcement agency to develop a comprehensive framework for a tiered and classified merger review regime.
The five local agencies will be responsible for examining simple cases designated by SAMR, which will retain authority to issue final decisions based on the provincial regulators’ reports.
SAMR pledged to strengthen oversight and guidance to ensure local reviews remain consistent, standardized and efficient.
Source: MLex
