New anti-trust laws to be introduced in both China and India will prove to be a significant barrier for cross-border Asian mergers and acquisitions, according to competition lawyers.

Both countries will this year implement anti-trust regimes based on the European Union model, covering mergercontrol, anti-competitive agreements and market dominance.

In China, this means that from August 2008,  any potential merger of companies with global turnovers in excess of $1.5bn - and in China itself turnovers of more than $60m - will need to be notified to the authorities whch could lead to an inquiry lasting up to six months. This, many believe, could result in Chinese merger control enquiries delaying many transactions which have relatively little competitive effect on China.

The thresholds in India are more complicated, but its new law also gives the Indian Competition Commission up to 210 days to assess merger cases £ much longer than is available to their counterparts in Europe and the United States.

Indian companies have become serious investors in developed countries in recent years, with companies from the country spending more than £1.5bn on buying businesses in the UK in the first half of 2008, while British acquisitions in India totalled £9.56bn in 2007, according to figures compiled by accountants Grant Thornton.