The Saudi antitrust regime has experienced substantial changes. At the end of September 2019, Saudi Arabia issued Saudi Arabia Royal Decree No. M75/1440 On the Approval of the Competition Law (Saudi Arabia Cabinet Decision No. 372/1440 On the Approval on the Law of Competition) which substantially overhauled the Saudi merger control and antitrust regimes. With this, the Saudi competition regulator, namely the General Authority for Competition (GAC), was reorganised, and enforcement of the regime increased substantially. The threshold for market dominant positions was not amended. However, the merger control notification regime was substantially amended, including a switch from market share to a turnover based threshold. This shift drastically increased the scope of application of the Saudi merger control regime. Since the new thresholds were introduced, there has been a stark increase in merger control filings made to the GAC.

• GAC: General Authority for Competition.