The Harbourside Room at Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art was as full as it could be on Wednesday as senior partners from top tier firms, eminent competition policy figures and journalists gathered to hear Treasurer Jim Chalmers announce the most extensive overhaul in Australian merger law in 50 years.
But for at least one of those constituencies present, competition lawyers who have been vocal in opposing Gina Cass-Gottlieb's 2023 merger reform wish list, the long-awaited reveal was a damp squib.
"I’m worried that we may end up with some of the worst features of the European administrative model and some of the worst aspects of the current Australian system," Gilbert + Tobin partner Simon Muys told me in an interview before the event.
Chalmers announced proposals to force all merger deals above a yet to be announced threshold to be notified to the Australian competition regulator, as well as a goal to stop "creeping acquisitions".
