A concentration — a merger, an amalgamation or the acquisition of control — is regulated in Georgia by the Law on Competition, and the central element of that regulation is the duty of prior written notification to the agency. The message of this page is precise: the notification duty exists and depends on threshold amounts defined by law; the thresholds themselves are set by a legal act of the agency, so citing numerical limits is correct only where verified against that current act. Below we explain the substance of the duty, the exceptions, the review periods and the avenues of challenge.
The Substance of the Duty and Its Subject
Under Article 11, the agency must be notified in advance, in writing and completely, of a concentration whose participants’ individual or aggregate joint turnover in Georgia, by the preceding financial year, exceeds the established threshold. Article 11-1 uses a parallel formula based on the value of assets or annual turnover. Both thresholds are set by the Rule on the Submission and Examination of Notifications of Concentration, approved by the agency itself.
Who is obliged? Under Article 3, an economic agent is a person who, regardless of residency or legal form, carries out entrepreneurial activity. The Georgian revenues or assets of a foreign group therefore count in the calculation — residency alone creates no exception.
The Procedure and the Deadlines
The examination fee is fixed by statute at 5 000 lari. Within 10 working days of receiving the notification the agency checks whether the planned concentration falls within the law’s scope and informs the notifying party. Examination begins after the proof of payment is submitted, and the agency must, no later than 25 working days, adopt one of two decisions: compatibility with the competitive environment, or extension of the review period. Where extended, the examination concludes no later than 90 calendar days from that decision. Silence within the set periods counts as approval.
The review period under Article 11-1 differs: the agency examines the notification within one month, extendable by no more than two weeks given the complexity of the case, and silence again counts as approval. The agency may request additional information, which suspends the deadlines.