For concentrations meeting the conditions set forth in Article L. 430-2 of the French Commercial Code, a notification to the French Competition Authority (Autorité de la concurrence) is mandatory. To facilitate merger control procedures, an online pre-notification and notification procedure for concentrations that are eligible for the simplified procedure is available on the internet site of the Competition Authority as of Oct. 18, 2019.

The online procedure may be used for concentrations in the food or automobile distribution sectors and, more generally, where the transaction does not result in any horizontal overlap (i.e., none of the parties is engaged in business activities in the same relevant market) or any vertical overlap (i.e., none of the parties is engaged in a market which is upstream or downstream of a market in which another party is engaged), and where there is no effect on a related market (i.e., none of the parties is present in a product market, which is a neighboring market closely related to a product market in which any other party is engaged).

The online notification may concern about 50 percent of the transactions currently examined by the Authority. This will increase to 70 percent, once the Authority’s new guidelines on merger control, which significantly extend the scope of the simplified procedure, enter into force.