By decision of 23 March 2020, the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has updated the turnover thresholds that make prior notification of a concentration mandatory, pursuant to Article 16, par. 1, of Law No. 287 of 1990 ("Law").
According to Article 16, par. 1 of the Law, as amended, a concentration shall be notified in advance to the ICA if the combined aggregate national turnover of all the undertakings concerned exceeds € 504 million, and if the aggregate domestic turnover of each of at least two of the undertakings concerned exceeds € 31 million. The above mentioned thresholds are cumulative.
The criteria to calculate, and geographically allocate the turnover of the undertakings concerned by the merger are also equivalent to those set out in the Council Regulation 139/04 and in the Commission Consolidated Jurisdictional Notice adopted under the EU Merger Regulation (i.e. gross value – minus VAT and other direct taxed – of sale of product or services towards thirds parties, therefore excluding intra-group sales and other income).
The increase in the value of the thresholds corresponds, as provided for by Article 16 of the Law, to the increase in the gross domestic product price deflator index. The updated thresholds will be published by the Authority once the index is announced officially.
Although there are no sector-specific thresholds, the Law provides special rules for the method of calculation of turnover for banks and insurance companies. For banks and financial institutions, turnover is equal to the value of one-tenth of their total assets (memorandum accounts excluded), while for insurance companies turnover is equal to the value of premiums collected (Article 16, par.2, of the Law).
The press release in Italian is available here.
