French Competition Authority Reform: Increased notification Thresholds for Complex Mergers

The main aim of these changes is to speed up the review process, which has traditionally been time-consuming and demanding for both the notifying parties and the regulator. To archieve this, the Authority introduced an increase of the country’s merger control notification thresholds to EUR 250m in terms of the merger parties’ combined global pre-tax revenues (from EUR 150m at present), and EUR 80m of their total pre-tax revenue in France, versus EUR 50m today. Parties with combined revenues below both thresholds will not be required to notify the French Competition Authority of their transactions.

“The updated thresholds will better reflect the evolution of the country’s GDP and inflation since 2004 and will ease the workload of merger reviews, which has been increasing”, explains Etienne Chantrel, Partner at Eight Advisory and former Head of the Autorité de la concurrence’s merger unit between 2017 and 2024. 

This procedural change will place a greater onus on merging companies to co-operate fully with the authority at an early stage, promoting clearer communication and reducing the risk of delays once the formal investigation has begun. The reform coud also prevent acquirers from stifling competition at an early stage and to guard against abuse of dominance by leading players in emerging sectors.

Read the full version of this article by Arezki Yaiche published on the website of Mergermarket on 7 March 2025.