AI IN MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS: REGULATORY CHALLENGES UNDER COMPETITION LAW AND DATA PROTECTION LAW

ABSTRACT Artificial intelligence has moved from a peripheral due-diligence tool to a central input in the mergers and acquisitions ("M&A") lifecycle, informing target screening, valuation, synergy modelling, and post-merger integration. This transformation strains two regulatory regimes that were not designed with algorithmic decision-making in mind: competition law, which polices market power and coordination, and data protection law, which governs the lawful processing of personal data. This paper examines how AI-driven M&A activity generates novel risks — including "killer acquisitions" of nascent AI competitors, algorithmic facilitation of tacit collusion, data concentration as a barrier to entry, and non-compliant data transfers during due diligence — and evaluates how competition and data protection authorities in the European Union, the United States, and India have begun to respond. Drawing on the Bundeskartellamt's Facebook decision, the European Commission's Google/Fitbit clearance, the Competition (Amendment) Act, 2023 deal-value threshold in India, the General Data Protection Regulation, and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, the paper argues that the doctrinal separation between competition law and data protection law is increasingly untenable in AI-driven transactions, and that convergence — through information-sharing, joint theories of harm, and ex-ante regulation such as the EU Digital Markets Act and AI Act — offers the more coherent regulatory path forward. Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Mergers and Acquisitions; Competition Law; Data Protection; Merger Control; Killer Acquisitions; GDPR; Digital Markets Act; Competition Act 2002.