Clause 37 - Time-limits for investigations and reports
Enterprise Bill
5:15 pm
Mr Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne, Conservative)
As members of the Committee will appreciate, clause 37 introduces a fixed time limit of 24
weeks for the Competition Commission to prepare and publish its report on a merger reference. Subsection (3) allows it to extend that timetable by up to eight additional weeks.
The CBI has expressed its concern that any such extension should take place only with the consent of both parties to a merger. The Competition Commission may not be able to reach an agreement on an extension with both parties to a merger. One can envisage a hostile bid going ahead, and an agreement not being allowed because of the damaging effect of a protracted investigation on the potential victim company. If one of the parties were not prepared to agree, the period for the second stage investigation should remain at the maximum stipulated in clause 37 of 24 weeks.
This is perhaps presumptuous, but it might the assist the Under-Secretary in giving her answer to the Committee if she were to deal with where the 24-week figure came from in the first place, because I am sure that there is an internal logic to it. An even greater onus will be placed on those who want to create the situation in subsection (3), whereby one or both parties can be forced against their wishes to extend that period.
The CBI should also like to pass on that it would have preferred the adoption of the maximum 16-working-week time limit, which would mirror the European Commission merger regulation phase two timetable. To stray slightly outside the terms of the amendments, which might obviate the need for a stand part debate, it would be helpful if the Under-Secretary, in describing the logic behind the 24-week provision, could tell us why the 16-week time limit was discarded at an early stage, when it would otherwise have neatly mirrored the ECMR timetable. That is the reason for the amendments. The subsection is clearly causing concern in the business community, so I shall be interested to hear its justification.