The German Government introduces proposal to reform the Act against Restraint of Competition

Government proposal amends local nexus requirement for new transaction value threshold* On 21 September 2016, the German Government has introduced a formal legislative proposal (Gesetzesvorschlag – “Government Proposal”) for the reform of the Act against Restraint of Competition (“ARC”; 9th amendment) which builds on the draft proposal (Referentenentwurf – “Ministerial Draft”) of the Federal Ministry of Economics. It still includes the proposed extension of German merger notification thresholds by implementation of an additional ‘size of the transaction’ test but the draft carries two notable amendments: The value threshold has been increased from EUR 350 million to EUR 400 million and, more importantly, the local nexus requirement has been narrowed down substantially. New threshold