Antitrust in China and Across the Region Quarterly Update: July to September 2020
23 March 2021
Key points of interest include the following:
The number of merger cases in China remained steady last quarter and similar to last year. All were unconditionally cleared, mostly under the simple review procedure. Also in line with recent trends, there were three failure to file cases published last quarter. Interestingly one of them concerned the establishment of a joint venture outside China which appears to have little or no nexus to China, making it the first failure to file penalty imposed in relation to an extraterritorial JV.
In terms of antitrust enforcement, last quarter saw four cases, three of which involved the supply of gas and one in relation to used cars. Other developments of note include a court decision confirming that under civil procedures RPM agreements are only prohibited under the AML where they have anti-competitive effect and the publication by SAMR of a series of guidelines covering the automotive industry; intellectual property; leniency; commitments and compliance programmes within China and for Chinese companies active overseas. The automotive guidelines contain indicative safe harbours and some useful guidance on issues such as territorial restrictions in distribution agreements that would arguably have wider implications.
Outside China, Singapore's CCCS concluded its market study into e-commerce platforms with proposals to update its guidelines in relation to market definition for multi-sided platforms; the assessment of abuse of dominance; and mergers involving digital platforms. In the Philippines, the Bayanihan law came into effect, temporarily raising the merger thresholds from PHP 2.4 billion to PHP 50 billion (approximately USD 1 billion) in order to stimulate recovery - the Philippine Competition Commission would be able to investigate un-notified transactions on its own initiative after one year. In Japan, the JFTC accepted commitments from Amazon in relation to an investigation into terms applied to vendors on Amazon's website and the Japanese cabinet approved a law which includes a reduction in antitrust fines based on cooperation.
Finally, in Australia, the ACCC released a draft code on negotiations between digital platforms and news businesses (aimed at curbing the market power of Google and Facebook) and moved ahead with its inquiry into mobile apps.
Clifford Chance
