Creeping acquisitions, deals aimed at gaining control of startups to face CCI scrutiny

The new deal value threshold (DVT) for mergers and acquisitions, introduced by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) recently, is likely to have a major impact on startup deals. According to competition experts, most startups look for funding to expand, and a slew of modifications in the list of exemptions will bring more transactions in the startups space under the CCI’s scrutiny.

“The new DVT limit of Rs 2,000 crore tries to tackle a problem that CCI could not handle previously because the traditional thresholds were not met or exemptions were available.