Policy makers have turned back a bid by Air New Zealand (ANZ) and Qantas for New Zealand and Australia to merge their competition agencies.
The airlines claim that when they applied for approval of their proposed equity merger, the regulatory process in both countries cost them about $40 million. They complain that separate agencies applying separate standards undermined their efforts to work together.
Australia's productivity commission, which invited views from New Zealand and Australia on ways to integrate their economies, agreed to recommend that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and New Zealand Commerce Commission, which enforce competition laws, standardise procedures so parties could make a single application to both agencies.
Source: Airline Business
