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13 October, 2016
Optimise your tendering strategies now as first dawn raids reported in IT bid-rigging cartel investigation (6 October 2016)
It would seem that the Hong Kong Competition Commission (HKCC) already has advanced investigations underway barely 10 months into the new competition law regime. Since May 2016 the HKCC has actively stressed bid-rigging as an enforcement priority in a range of compliance activities including its “Fight Bid-rigging Cartels” advocacy campaign, residential building renovation and maintenance market study, recommendations to the Hong Kong Housing Authority on piped LPG supply, and most recently with its comments on the successful prosecution and sentencing in the Garden Vista bid-rigging and bribery case.
Don’t talk future pricing: the real takeaway from HKCC’s first proposed block exemption order (14 September 2016)
The competition authority has reiterated that recommended pricing guidelines and exchanges of future pricing will almost always be considered competitively harmful and a contravention of the law. The HKCC is proposing to treat, under certain conditions, liner vessel sharing agreements – but not voluntary discussion agreements – as ‘excluded agreements’ based on efficiency grounds. Consistent with its interactions so far with trade associations and general business guidance on information exchange and pricing recommendations, its detailed response to the Hong Kong Liner Shipping Association’s application highlights the difficulties of substantiating efficiency claims for such practices. As there is no requirement to apply to the HKCC for a decision or block exemption order for a business to benefit from this general “efficiency exclusion”, the HKCC’s analysis offers invaluable guidance to all business when self-assessing their conduct under the general prohibition on anti-competitive agreements and practices.
For further information, please contact:
Wendy Thian, Deacons
