27 June, 2017
The Hong Kong Competition Commission announced today that Brent Snyder, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General for criminal antitrust enforcement at the US Department of Justice, has been appointed as its new Chief Executive Officer. Brent Snyder will take over on 4 September 2017 from the incumbent, Rose Webb.
Brent Snyder brings with him over 14 years of US antitrust enforcement experience, including since 2013 serving as the head of criminal antitrust enforcement. His role as Deputy Assistant Attorney General saw him overseeing the US DOJ’s antitrust criminal prosecutions and leading policy developments such as revisions to the leniency programme.
During his tenure, the US DOJ’s emphasis was placed on holding both individuals and companies to account, imposing hundreds of millions of dollars in fines ever year against cartel participants, across all sectors of the economy. Brent Snyder contributed to the DOJ’s many achievements in global cartel enforcement. He oversaw some of the most high-profile criminal cartel prosecutions in the US in recent years, securing for instance a 5-year jail sentence against company executives in a shipping cartel; multiple jail sentences against senior executives and a record USD 500 million fine in the LCD cartel; and the prosecution of several individuals accused of rigging tenders for public school bus transportation contracts in Puerto Rico. Mr Snyder also managed a number of innovative domestic cases such as the price-fixing investigation into sellers of posters on Amazon Marketplace.
Brent Snyder’s arrival in Hong Kong comes at a critical time for competition law enforcement in the city, amid public and political pressures in favour of a more vigorous approach to enforcement. With Mr Snyder as CEO, the HKCC’s overall enforcement priorities will likely remain focussed on cartels and bid-rigging cases.
Brent Snyder’s first task will be to press ahead with the Commission’s small docket of ongoing cases. He may also seek to bring more certainty to the HKCC’s leniency policy, which has yet to become a meaningful tool for cartel detection in Hong Kong. Under the current leniency rules, the first applicant to bring a case to the HKCC’s knowledge can receive complete immunity from fines, but subsequent applicants have no guarantee that they will benefit from their cooperation with the regulator.
When Brent Snyder arrives in Hong Kong, he will need to navigate a number of challenges at the HKCC, including leading current cases to successful enforcement outcomes, influencing the debate over the adequacy of the authority’s budget for its future litigation, and the future of the statutory bodies’ exemption.
Brent Snyder will be the third holder of the CEO post since the creation of the HKCC in 2015 and has been appointed for three years. He will replace Rose Webb, who will return to Australia in September.
For further information, please contact:
Clara Ingen-Housz, Partner, Linklaters
cih@linklaters.com
