Labor boldly proposes to prevent competition from getting worse… eventually

After much consultation, Labor’s competition law reforms emerged last week — for more consultation — with only a limited increase in the scope for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to prevent or place conditions on anti-competitive mergers and acquisitions.

The draft legislation does significantly alter Australia’s competition law assessment process by requiring all transactions above a certain threshold to be submitted to the ACCC for a two-phase assessment, rather than the current voluntary approach. If the ACCC suspects a transaction might substantially lessen competition, it will move into a second phase of detailed assessment.