Saudi Authority Issues Report on 2024 Activities

On January 7, 2024, The General Authority for Competition (GAC) published its 2024 Merger Control Report. According to the report, GAC granted unconditional clearance for 202 transactions in 2024. Unlike in 2023 when the GAC imposed remedies on three transactions, they issued no conditional clearance in 2024. Merger control filings in Saudi Arabia rose considerably in 2024. Compared to 2023 the number of filings received by the GAC rose by 17.4 percent. The number of non-notification decisions one the other hand decreased slightly. In 2023 the GAC issued 128 non-notification decisions. The number dropped to 105 in 2024. , the number of non-notification obligation decisions decreased slightly, with 105 such decisions issued in 2024, compared to 128 in 2023.

As in previous years the 2024 included only limited details on transactions notified to the GAC. The report only provided data on types of transactions, involvement of foreign persons/entities, and industries. 81 percent of the transactions reviewed by the GAC in 2024 were acquisition. Joint ventures made up 15 percent, and mergers only made up 2 percent. In addition, the GAC approved the registration of four new dealership agreements in the automotive sector. Horizontal transactions, representing 53% of all requests submitted to the authority. Conglomerate transactions, made up 31% and vertical transactions, accounted for 15%.

According to the report, 22.26 percent of the notifications submitted involved foreign and domestic parties, while 55.94 percent were foreign-to-foreign transactions. Additionally, transactions involving only domestic parties accounted for 21.80 percent of the total submissions.

Divided by industry the manufacturing sector accounted for the largest share of filings submitted, with 67 submissions. 39 submission concerned the information and communication sector. Other relevant sectors were the wholesale, retail trade, and automotive aftersales sectors, with 22 filings. The manufacturing sector also was the most relevant among foreign-to-foreign transactions, with 28 percent of foreign-to-foreign transactions submitted concerning manufacturing undertakings.

Still, as in 2023 the 2024 report did not address enforcement action by the authority. While the GAC has been increasingly active in enforcing the Saudi merger control regime issuing fines and settling increasing amounts of cases, without official numbers it remains difficult to accurately assess their activity. Data on enforcement—as was included in the GAC’s 2022 report—would be welcome.