FCCPC AMENDS PROCESSING FEES APPLICABLE TO NOTIFIABLE TRANSACTIONS
FCCPC AMENDS PROCESSING FEES APPLICABLE TO NOTIFIABLE TRANSACTIONS
The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act, 2018 (the Act) vests the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (the Commission or FCCPC) with powers to make regulations relating to imposition and collection of fees. Accordingly, the combined provisions of Regulation 15 and Schedule 1 to the Merger Review Regulations 2020 (the 2020 Regulations) lay out different fees payable to the Commission for the transactions requiring its approval. The fees provided in Schedule 1 of the 2020 Regulations include Application, Expedited Procedure Service, Negative Clearance Procedure and Notification Fees.
On 6th August 2021, the Commission released the Merger Review (Amended) Regulations 2021 (the 2021 Regulations) which amends Schedule 1 of the 2020 Regulations and effectively brings about significant changes to the manner of determining Notification Fees payable to the Commission in respect of notifiable transactions. The 2021 Regulations introduced a new table showing the manner of determining the applicable Notification Fee as shown below:
| S/N | Threshold | Fees
(Consideration of Transaction) |
Fees
(Last Combined Annual Turnover |
| 1. | First N500 Million | 0.45% | 0.45% |
| 2. | Next N500 Million | 0.40% | 0.40% |
| 3. | Any sum thereafter | 0.35% | 0.35% |
As with under the 2020 Regulations, the applicable Notification Fee is the higher of:
- An amount being a percentage of the consideration of the transaction calculated using the table above: and
- An amount being a percentage of the last combined annual turnover calculated using the table above.
The 2021 Regulations takes effect immediately and accordingly the changes to the Notification Fee payable to the Commission in respect of notifiable transactions are effective immediately. The effect of the changes is that the Notification Fee now payable to the Commission will be reduced significantly for transactions whose consideration and/or parties combined annual turnover are well over N1,000,000,000 (One Billion Naira).