The European Commission launched a public consultation on the proposal for simplifying procedures under the EU Merger Regulation. The proposed initiative is a technical reform within the existing framework of EU merger control as defined by the Merger Regulation. In particular, the Commission proposes to update the Notice on a simplified procedure for treatment of certain mergers.

The European Commission is gathering views on a proposal to simplify certain procedures for notifying mergers under the EU Merger Regulation. According to the Commission, this proposal aims to make EU merger control even more business-friendly by cutting red tape and streamlining procedures. The proposed changes could allow up to 70% of all notified mergers to qualify for review under the Commission's simplified procedure, i.e. about 10% more than today. The contributions to the public consultation can be made until the 19 of June.

Particularly, the Commission proposes to update the Notice on a simplified procedure for treatment of certain mergers. Under this notice, companies can use a shorter notification form for certain categories of mergers that are generally unlikely to raise competition problems. If the combined market shares of the two merging companies are below a certain threshold, the merger is treated under the simplified procedure.

The Commission also proposes to amend the Regulation implementing the Merger Regulation in order to update and streamline the merger notification forms. In particular, in cases that do not fall under the simplified procedure, merging firms would only have to submit detailed information for those markets where their market share actually exceeds the threshold for applying the simplified procedure.