The Italian Competition Authority publishes merger guidance on its powers to review below-threshold mergers

As anticipated in one of our previous blog posts, the “2021 Competition Law”, enacted in August 2022, granted the Italian Antitrust Authority ( IAA ) a new power to request undertakings to notify concentrations falling below the turnover thresholds which trigger a merger filing obligation. The rationale behind this new provision is, similarly to the recently “revamped” Commission’s policy under Art. 22 EUMR, mainly that of tackling so-called “killer acquisitions” that would have fallen outside of the scope of the current merger review rules. While the digital/media and health/pharmaceutical sectors are identified as the main areas where such concerns may arise, the new power applies across the board to all sectors. Most recently, the IAA, after a public consultation, on 27 December