Proposed amendments to the Notifiable Transactions Regulations

On April 4, 2009, proposed amendments to the Notifiable Transactions Regulations were published in the Canada Gazette Part I.

The proposed amendments to the Regulations reflect amendments to the Competition Act contained in the Budget Implementation Act, 2009. These amendments relate to the introduction of a new merger review process and the elimination of the separate “short form” and “long form” notification information requirements in favour of a uniform requirement.

The proposed amendments also include:

• Corrections to outdated references to sections of the Competition Act;
  
  
• A mechanism to facilitate the electronic submission of certain documents; and,
  
  
• A reduction in the amount of information that parties to a proposed transaction are required to supply to the Commissioner of Competition for the purposes of pre-merger notification of transactions. These reductions are part of the Bureau’s contribution to the Government of Canada’s Paperwork Burden Reduction Initiative.

Interested parties are encouraged to provide their input within 60 days of publication. Following a review of the comments, the appropriate modifications will be made (if necessary), before publishing the proposed regulatory amendments in Part II of the Canada Gazette, such that it will become law in Canada.