Competition Law Quarterly Asia Pacific
11 March 2024
Welcome to the first edition of the Ashurst Competition Law Quarterly (CLQ) which focuses on key developments and enforcement cases across the Asia Pacific region.
The edition comprises key developments in competition law enforcement for the quarter ending 31 December 2023 (accessible via the interactive map below).
The interactive map highlights significant competition law developments in Australia, Brunei, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and/or Vietnam on a quarterly basis. It will focus on enforcement actions, investigations, market studies and legislative developments.
As we reflect on the last quarter of 2023, we see competition law enforcers across the Asia-Pacific taking competition law enforcement to a new level.
- In Australia, talks of merger reform are at the fore following the release of a consultation paper by the Australian Treasury. Amongst the reform measures, one of the options floated is to have a mandatory merger control regime;
- In China, cooperation between China's state, provincial and city market regulators coupled with a strengthened investigatory toolkit promulgated by earlier reforms to the Anti-Monopoly Law have seen an unprecedent number of investigations and enforcement actions for abuse of dominance conduct in the last quarter;
- Meanwhile, the Indonesian authority is looking to neighbouring regimes as they follow the trend of shifting focus and a push for law reform to address the imbalance of power and risks of anti-competitive conduct in digital markets;
- With a cost of living crises being felt in jurisdictions across the world, regulators are also increasing scrutiny across key consumer industries. In December 2023, the Malaysia authority imposed significant penalties on 5 companies for forming a price fixing cartel in the chicken feed market.
These reform and enforcement trends look set to continue in 2024. The Ashurst Competition Quarterly publication will continue to reflect and report on these developments as the year progresses.
The interactive map was last updated on 11 March 2024.
CLQ Editors: Angie Ng, Partner; Adelle Elhosni, Senior Associate; Kailun Ji, Senior Associate; Chelsea Toner, Associate; and Danny Xie, Associate.
