Relevant legislation and statutory standards

Spanish Merger Control legislation is set out in the Law for the Defence of Competition 2007 (‘the LDC’), which came into effect on 1 September 2007, and in Royal Decree 261/2008 of 22 February 2008 (‘the Royal Decree’).

By way of exception to the procedures outlined in the LDC and the Royal Decree, procedures specific to public offers for shares are set out in Article 26 of Royal Decree 1066/2007 (‘the Public Offer Decree’).

In addition to merger control legislation as such, the energy and telecommunications sectors are also subject to speciic legislation as explained in section 8 below.

Decision-making bodies and enforcement authorities

The sole decision-making body is the National Competition Commission (Comisión Nacional de la Competencia, or CNC), although cases resulting in the prohibition of transactions or the imposition of conditions can be reviewed by the Minister of the Economy (‘the Minister’) and by Government (the Consejo de Ministros or Council of Ministers), on certain public-interest grounds.