MCA raises thresholds for merger regulation

livemint.com:

₹2,000 crore or ₹6,000 crore turnover in India alone had warranted CCI approval. This has been revised to a combined asset threshold of ₹2,500 crore and turnover threshold of ₹7,500 crore. In the case of businesses with cross-border presence, the threshold since 2016 has been aggregate assets of $1 billion, out of which at least ₹1,000 crore of assets should be in India or combined sales of $3 billion, out of which at least ₹3,000 crore should be from India.

This has been raised to $1.25 billion assets, out of which at least ₹1,250 crore should be in India or $3.75 billion in turnover for all the parties in the transaction together, out of which ₹3,750 crore should be from India. In the case of groups with presence only in India, the thresholds in effect since 2016 has been ₹8,000 crore of assets or ₹24,000 crore sales. These have been raised to ₹10,000 crore of assets and ₹30,000 crore of sales.

Since 2016, business groups with presence in India and abroad were required to take CCI approval if they had $4 billion assets, of which ₹1,000 crore is in India or $12 billion sales, of which ₹3,000 crore was from India. This has also been revised up to $5 billion assets inclusive of ₹1,250 crore in India or $15 billion sales, of which ₹3750 crore is from India, showed the official statement. The government had in 2017 introduced a special carve-out to exclude certain transactions from the purview of CCI’s merger review, if the target company was small.