The Competition Authority was forced to issue eight summonses in the first half of the year to companies that failed to comply fully with the new mergers regime, The Irish Times learned yesterday. Barry O'Halloran reports.

The director of its mergers division, Mr Ted Henneberry, revealed there were 38 mergers notified to the authority in the first six months of the year, compared to 21 during the first six months of 2003.

He attributed the increase in deals to an improving economic climate. "It's a sign that companies are investing again and that they are targeting growth," he said yesterday. "Merger activity is usually a good bellwether of economic activity."

Companies must notify proposed mergers to the authority when at least one of the parties has a turnover of €40 million or more, and is doing business in the State. All media mergers are automatically referred to the authority, irrespective of the size of the parties involved.

Since this new regime was introduced last year, the Competition Authority has cleared all deals notified to it, imposing conditions on just two.

However, Mr Henneberry yesterday said that in eight cases this year the authority was forced to issue summonses to executives of companies involved in mergers in order to obtain all the information it needed to review individual deals.

Failure to comply fully with these summonses is a criminal offence. Anyone convicted at District Court level can be fined up to €3,000 or imprisoned for six months.

Mr Henneberry explained that the authority normally begins its review of a deal with an informal request for all the relevant information. However, if it does not get a satisfactory response, it can summon individual executives.

They must then provide the information, and be examined under oath. Mr Henneberry said that in each case where the authority summoned executives, they turned up with all the relevant information.

He pointed out that net effect of failing to co-operate initially meant business people were holding up their own deals. "Because of that lack of response, they delayed their ability to get their deals done by almost double the time," he said. "And time is money."

Mr Henneberry said part of the problem was that Irish companies and their advisers were getting used to the new regime. "It's possible that they are on a learning curve," he said.

However, he emphasised that the authority would continue to use its powers to ensure compliance. "What we are saying is that if we do not get that information informally, then we are going to use our power to summons people to get it," he said.

The 38 mergers notified to the Competition Authority during the six-month period included deals involving Irish companies, and Irish-based subsidiaries of multinational or foreign-owned businesses that were involved in mergers and buyouts. They also included a number of automatically notified media mergers.