Clifford Chance
Antitrust in China and across the region: Quarterly Update April to June 2018
25 July 2018
This quarter saw China's new competition regulator, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) formally start work – it issued its first merger decision and launched its first dawn raids in May. Although key decisions on the new senior management have been delayed, the transition from the three legacy agencies to SAMR has been largely completed. In its first month of operation, SAMR has unconditionally cleared all cases, most under the simplified procedure.
Substantively, the most notable development has been SAMR's decision to conduct a dawn raid against DRAMeXchange's Shenzhen premises as part of its investigation into manufacturers of DRAM memory chips. This is a research unit of TrendForce, rather than a manufacturer, and so SAMR appears to have taken an unusual (but not unprecedented) step of broadening an investigation beyond the direct participants.
Outside China, a particularly noteworthy development occurred in Australia where the ACCC brought its second criminal cartel prosecution against a number of senior banking executives who are accused of offences relating to the placement of 80.8 million shares of ANZ. The core issue is whether an agreement between the underwriters of an institutional share placement in relation to the sale of unsubscribed shares constitutes criminal cartel conduct. The outcome of this case will be keenly watched elsewhere.
Elsewhere, the Hong Kong Competition Commission issued guidelines on the application of competition rules to employment issues; Singapore issued its first interim measures against the completed Uber/Grab merger; India issued a fine of INR 1 million (approx. USD 14,500) for failure to file; Japan released 2017 statistics showing a fall in fines imposed for competition-related offences to JPY 1.9 billion (approx. USD 17 million); and both Thailand and Vietnam took further steps towards the implementation of new competition regimes.
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