LEGAL DUE DILIGENCE IN MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS: BRIDGING THE REGULATORY GAPS IN INDIA'S M&A FRAMEWORK

Legal due diligence in Indian mergers and acquisitions has traditionally been organised around a patchwork of separate regulatory regimes, including the Companies Act, 2013, the SEBI Takeover Regulations, and the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999. This blog examines two comparatively recent gaps in this patchwork: the Deal Value Threshold introduced by the Competition (Amendment) Act, 2023, which brings high-value, asset-light digital acquisitions within the Competition Commission of India's jurisdiction for the first time, and the emerging liability created by the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 for a target's historical data practices. It argues that closing these gaps requires better integration of competition and data protection review into the diligence process from the outset, rather than treating them as afterthoughts.