Photo by: Duane Daws
Merger and acquisition activity valued at less than N$30-million and transfer undertakings will no longer need to be filed with the Namibian Competition Commission after the Namibian Ministry of Industrialisation, Trade and Small and Medium-sized Enterprise Development revised its merger notification thresholds in December.
Bowman Gilfillan Africa competition practice partner Tamara Dini said in a statement this week that the revised thresholds were a positive development and, while the thresholds were still low, with many small deals requiring notification, the revisions distinguished between a threshold applicable to the merging parties on a combined basis and the threshold applicable to the transferred undertaking only.
The government had set a threshold of N$30-million for the combined yearly turnover of the acquiring undertaking and transferred undertaking; the combined value of the assets of the acquiring undertaking and the transferred undertaking; and the the yearly turnover and the value of the assets of the transferred undertaking.
Further, a filing would not be required should the yearly turnover or the assets of the transferred undertaking be less than N$15-million.