Developments in Asia-Pacific competition regimes
Q: Is there any development in Asia-Pacific competition regimes?
A: Yes. Several countries or region promulgated new rules to enforce competition since mid-2013.
Q: How China enforces competition law?
A: Since mid-2013, the NDRC and SAIC, which are responsible for pricing issues and abuse of marketing dominance issues respectively, announced on several occasions that they will enforce competition law more vigorously. That means a company in China which do domestic or international business will be subject to a stricter anti-monopoly review. At the beginning of 2014, NDRC launched anti-monopoly investigation on Qualcomm, a big time US company. Additionally, under the above-said policy, the merger review process in China will become longer and be more difficult to predict the outcome.
Q: How Hong Kong enforces competition law?
A: Hong Kong promulgated Competition Ordinance which is expected to become effective during 2014. This Ordinance governs all domestic businesses in Hong Kong; however, small or medium sized business or statutory bodies will not be subject to this Ordinance. Additionally, there is no merger control in Hong Kong.
Q: How Singapore and Indonesian enforce competition law?
A: In Singapore, mergers have been required to go through reviewing process since 2007. The Singapore's Competition Commission is currently intending to conduct an in-depth review of the proposed acquisition. In Indonesian, merger control is being increasingly enforced. There are several precedents in 2012 or 2013 in which the authorities in charge impose the fine on those companies which failed to notify the authorities of the merger.
Q: How Malaysia enforces competition law?
A: Malaysian Competition Commission(MyCC) takes aggressive steps to enforce competition law in relation to cartels and dominance issues. In late 2013, MyCC brought lawsuit against AirAsia and the government-owned Malaysian Airlines on the ground of market sharing arrangement between them and fine the defendants with around USD 3 million. Also, MyCC took steps against 26 domestic ice manufactures of suspected price fixing.
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