Submission: Review of the Competition Thresholds in the Commerce Act 1986 and Related Issues

New Zealand Business Roundtable
1 May, 1999

We have supported moving to a single competition threshold test that would apply to trade practices and business acquisitions. Business acquisitions and trade practices are part of a continuum of possible contractual arrangements rather than distinctly different forms. They should therefore be subject to the same regulatory rules. Adoption of a single threshold avoids different treatment of economically equivalent behaviour. Rules that bias the choice of commercial arrangement (eg vertical integration versus contracting) are likely to reduce efficiency.

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