Competition Law Quarterly Asia Pacific

As we closed out the 2024 calendar year, competition law developments across key Asia Pacific jurisdictions canvassed a range of areas. These included: law reform and enforcement in connection with national merger regimes and merger clearance processes; enforcement efforts against anti-competitive cartels; and - consistent with trends observed throughout the year - legislative developments in connection with big tech and digital platforms.

In particular, the last quarter of 2024 saw:

• legislative reform and enforcement cases relating to big tech and digital platforms.
  • In Australia, the Australian Treasury is now moving to consult on a new framework for a new digital competition regime which features the possible designation of digital platforms that will be subject to specific competition law obligations.
  • The Philippine Competition Commission published a report on its market study into digital platforms demonstrating its intention to release bespoke laws and guidelines to govern competition in the digital economy.
  • In Thailand, the public hearing period for comments on the principles that will form the basis of Thailand's Platform Economy Act (PEA) ended. This will form the basis of laws for both user protection and fair competition obligations for digital platforms and related service providers.
  • The Indonesian government has moved to ban large e-commerce platform Temu from Google and Apple app stores in Indonesia in a bid to prevent "unhealthy competition" and to protect small-medium enterprise in the e-commerce sector. This ban follows an earlier ban imposed by the Indonesian government against TikTok's e-commerce platform operating in Indonesia.
  • The Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) has cracked down on misleading advertising by leading food delivery platform, Delivery Hero.

   

• merger reform and merger enforcement action in Australia and China, respectively.
  
  • On 28 November 2024, the Australian Parliament passed the Treasury Laws Amendment (Mergers and Acquisitions Reform) Bill 2024 which contains significant reforms to Australia's merger control regime. The new regime replaces the existing voluntary, informal clearance process with a mandatory and suspensory administrative regime.
  • China's State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) has released two guidelines in relation to Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) and horizontal mergers. These guidelines aim to aim to provide more clarity and guidance for in the competition analysis in merger review and the anti-competitive conduct in relation to SEPs.

   

• other notable enforcement actions – including a dawn raid by the CCCS on several "HairFun" salon outlets in Singapore for suspected unfair practices (ie, including the exploitation of elderly consumers); and various forms of cartel conduct enforcement in the Philippines and Hong Kong (ie, including in connection with public procurement tender processes).

As we begin 2025, the developments above provide a forecast of what to expect in the year to come. In 2025, businesses must remain vigilant about competition and consumer laws, and of the regulatory authorities empowered to enforce these laws.

The interactive map was last updated on 20 January 2025.

CLQ Editorial team: Angie Ng, Partner; Adelle Elhosni, Senior Associate; Kailun Ji, Senior Associate; Chelsea Toner, Associate; Danny Xie, Associate; Dee Dee O'Shannassy, Associate and Aroon Parthasarathy, Graduate.