On February 7, 2023, the Secretary of Trade (the “Antitrust Authority”- published Resolution 63/2023 whereby the value of the administrative unit created as a reference by the Antitrust Law, was increased from AR$83,45 to AR$162,55, thereby updating both the merger control notification thresholds and the monetary penalties set forth in the Antitrust Law.
Pursuant to the Antitrust Law, both the merger control notification thresholds and the monetary penalties are expressed in administrative units, unlike the previous antitrust regime where these were expressed in fixed local currency amounts and thus quickly became outdated as a consequence of inflation.
The administrative unit’s value, according to the Antitrust Law, is to be updated on a yearly basis by the Antitrust Authority following the evolution of the official consumer price index.
The increase of the administrative unit’s value has an impact in the merger control thresholds as well as in the monetary penalties provided in the Antitrust Law.
The main resulting modifications are summarized below:
Merger control
Economic concentrations must be notified to the Antitrust Authority if the combined Argentine annual net sales of the acquiring group and the target group exceed AR$16,255 million during the preceding year (approx. US$90 million taking in consideration the exchange rate in force on December 31, 2022).
Additionally, the de minimis exemption was updated, and now otherwise mandatory economic concentrations are exempted from notification if both the amount of the Argentine portion of the transaction and the value of the assets to be transferred in Argentina are below AR$3,251 million (approx. US$17 million at the current exchange rate), unless where the acquiring group was involved in an economic concentration in the same market in Argentina valued in AR$3,251 million during the preceding 12 month period or AR$9,753 million (approx. US$50 million at the current exchange rate) during the preceding 36 month period.
Monetary penalties
Fines for anticompetitive conducts, when these cannot be calculated using the turnover or the illicit gain tests provided in the Antitrust Law, cannot exceed AR$32,510 million (approx. US$180 million at the current exchange rate).
Daily fines for breach of cease and desist orders, late filing and gun-jumping practices, when these cannot be calculated by means of using the turnover test set forth in the Antitrust Law, can now amount to AR$121.9 million (approx. US$620,000 at the current exchange rate).
