If the deal makers who help make the air route between Sydney and Melbourne one of the busiest in the world aren’t already cursing Qantas, then they should be now.
In her view, the merger regime must allow the watchdog to act faster and consider the ways competition has changed.On the first point, Cass-Gottlieb wants Australia to move into line with most Western jurisdictions and adopt a mandatory merger clearance model, where parties must notify the watchdog of deals that could have a material impact on competition. She says there are too many instances where the ACCC is being informed late in a merger process, or sometimes not at all.
“At the moment, we feel more constrained in being able to look at the cumulative impact of all of them, rather than just looking at the last one, where there can be quite a significant aggregation of concern as a result of the series,” Cass-Gottlieb says.