Saudi Arabian Regulator Lowered Merger Control Filing Fee Cap

The Saudi merger control authority—the General Authority for Competition (GAC)—on 7 June 2023 announces that with immediate effect the cap for the merger control filing fee would be reduced to SAR 250,000 (approx. USD 67,000).

The cap for merger control filing fees under the Saudi merger control regime was traditionally at SAR 400,000 (approx. USD 107,000). In January 2023 GAC announced that they  are considering reducing the filing fee cap to SAR 250,000 (approx. USD 67,000) and increasing the notification threshold to SAR 200 million (approx. USD 53.5 million). In March the authority announced that the notification threshold was increased to SAR 200 million (approx. USD 53.5 million). However, there was no announcement on amendments to the filing.

Now, on 7 June GAC announced that they were reducing the filing fee cap to SAR 250,000 (approx. USD 67,000) with immediate effect. The amendment did not affect the calculation method for the filing fee. The filing fee is still calculated as combined annual turnover of the parties involved in the transaction times multiplied by a factor of 0.0002.