31 July, 2018
Welcome to the 4th 2018 edition of our bi-monthly Asia Pacific Competition Law Bulletin. This bulletin is a collaborated product with our Linklaters colleagues (China) and our Allens colleagues (Australia). Expert local law firms who contributed to this edition include: TT&A (India), Mori Hamada & Matsumoto (Japan), Allen & Gledhill LLP (Singapore), Lee & Ko (South Korea) and Tsar & Tsai Law Firm(Taiwan). We hope that you continue to find this newsletter a useful source of information on competition law issues across the Asia Pacific region.
In this edition, cartel enforcement in the region take the headlines. In Australia, the regulator brought criminal cartel charges against several major banks and imposed a record fine of AUD 46 million in an automobile manufacturing cartel. In China, the competition authorities cracked down price-fixing in the port industry. The Hong Kong Competition Commission had its first trial before the local judiciary regarding alleged bid-rigging in the IT sector. In Japan, local competition watchdog brought criminal charges against four mega construction companies involved in the maglev project from Tokyo to Nagoya. The Indian competition authority decided not to investigate the complaint against Uber and Ola due to the lack of evidence.
We also looked at some legislative and institutional developments. The Japanese and Singaporean legislatures recently empowered their competition authorities to accept commitments to settle an investigation. The Korean authority published its proposals to tackle the abuse of bargaining power in the retail industry.
Last but not least, we also cover some other interesting new developments. Hong Kong court for the first-time transferred part of its case to the Competition Tribunal, while India authority approved the Bayer acquisition of Monsanto with considerable structural and behavioural remedies.
For the full text document of all the articles, please click here.
For further information, please contact:
Clara Ingen-Housz, Partner, Linklaters
cih@linklaters.com
