Clifford Chance
Antitrust in China and across the region Quarterly Update January to March 2016
14 April 2016
This briefing contains an update on antitrust developments across APAC over the last quarter, including the most recent filing and fining statistics from China. In brief:
- Q1 2016 was a fairly quiet quarter in China - merger levels were up on last year, but all 81 deals were cleared unconditionally and recent investigations by NDRC/SAIC have focused mainly on domestic companies in the insurance and pharmaceutical sectors (although there are some larger ongoing investigations by both agencies which involve multinationals).
- In India, new filing thresholds came into force, extending the life of the de minimis exemption and raising the thresholds, meaning fewer mergers will now be caught. In the Philippines, transitional rules for its new merger regime came into effect and further guidance in this area is expected in June.
- Finally, Singapore's competition authority fined 10 financial advisers a total of around SGD 909,000 (USD 666,000) for pressuring a rival to withdraw a new product.
