Dealing in distress
There are concerns that the ACCC's proposals for the merger review process could make things even more difficult for companies seeking a quick sale due to financial distress.
Much of Australia's merger law debate has revolved around how a company might appeal a blocked deal and how to test any potential drop in competition resulting from a deal.
But there's been less commentary about how changes to the country's merger review process would affect companies in financial distress that are seeking a quick sale.
As a government review of the process reaches its final stages, competition and insolvency lawyers are concerned about additional layers of complexity that could be thrown into the mix for future deals.
While the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has proposed a "swift" review process for non-contentious deals, there's no clarity at this stage of what swift actually means. Crucially, a lawyer's understanding (according to those I've spoken to) of what the word means in this case might be quite different to the regulator's.
