On April 2, the Consumer Protection Committee unified and approved a series of proposals to regulate corporate mergers. Under these, mergers, acquisitions or concentrations in the financial sector must be evaluated by Indecopi in order to be authorized. The Committee ruling can now be discussed on the Assembly’s floor, which is expected in the coming days.

The ruling, which was approved by majority, introduces the concept of “positive administrative silence“, whereby in the event of Indecopi taking longer than the time allowed to approve a given merger, that merger may go ahead. In addition, one of the main changes included in the ruling is the increase in the thresholds that Indecopi would set as a criterion for whether or not to tax mergers. Thus, the initiative defines that the operations to be evaluated will be those in which annual sales exceed USD 149 million or USD 45.8 million individually. This last threshold is considerably higher than the USD 22.5 million one proposed by the Executive.

The ruling maintains intact the right of the Superintendence of Banking, Insurance and AFP (SBS) to offer its opinion on mergers that potentially pose a threat to the stability of the financial sector. Meanwhile, the Superintendence of the Securities Market (SMS) would have a role in the stock market sector and may issue an opinion on the authorization of operations among its supervised entities.

The bill is now ready to be voted on in Congress. Given there was consensus for the Committee ruling among different parties, it is expected to be passed without major changes in the next few days.