Competition & Antitrust and Trade

A unique Tier 1 Regional Practice with numerous awards to its name across several ASEAN countries. A team that handles every aspect of competition and trade laws from advisory and compliance to disputes and resolution. A team that has gained a reputation for being at the cutting edge. Chambers Asia highlights the Practice as being “… extremely client-focused and are very strong in terms of understanding the clients’ business and needs” with “… a keen sense of the local regulatory framework and provide commercially oriented and practical advice.” The team is also described as one that adds “… value by giving us a sense of […] what the regulators in the region are thinking.

On the Competition & Antitrust front, the regional team includes highly experienced lawyers and economists such as Kala Anandarajah of Singapore, who has been cited as being ‘Best of the Best…’ consistently over the years in Euromoney Experts Guides to the World’s Leading Lawyers and by Who’s Who Legal: Competition, Best Lawyers and others. Described by Chambers Asia and others as ‘very knowledgeable’, ‘highly active and very good’, an ‘acknowledged authority in this field’, and ‘one of the few practitioners who is truly at the cutting edge ……’, she is named in the top 100 women in Antitrust in the world by Gobal Competition Review. She was named ‘Singapore Best Competition & Antitrust Lawyer’ by Best Lawyers 2015 and is a winner of Euromoney Women in Business Law Awards for Competition in 2014 and 2015; Yon See Ting and Kuok Yew Chen of Malaysia cited by Chambers Asia as offering ‘significant competition law expertise’; and Tanya Tang of Singapore, Principal Economist, who graduated in the US and the UK, brings invaluable regulatory experience having worked with the Competition Commission of Singapore as well as the Infocomm Development Authority.

On the Trade Practice front, the team has seen international trade in ASEAN increase exponentially in recent years. ASEAN is becoming a major economic powerhouse in the region, having enacted free trade agreements with China, Australia, New Zealand, India, Japan, and Korea. International trade law is a very complex and an ever expanding area. Our regional Trade Law Practice comprises of lawyers in Singapore and in our regional offices in China, Lao PDR, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar, as well as associate and affiliate offices in Malaysia and Indonesia, with wealth of experience in assisting clients to manage the risks and maximize the opportunities associated with the increasing regulation of international trade in goods and services.  Our Trade Law Practice provides counsel and advice for all types of trade-related matters involving the import and export of goods, including origin, valuation, exporter verification, strategic goods controls, hazardous goods, licensing and permits requirements, as well as trade-related contractual documentation. We also have enormous experience in handling issues dealing with strategic goods and encryption related goods, trade restrictions and trade sanctions, anti-dumping concerns, product recalls and trade disputes.

OUR CROSS BORDER STRENGTH

This top-notch practice, which extends across ASEAN and beyond, advises a number of large conglomerates and multinational corporations from across the world on regional competition/antitrust and trade laws, including Singapore, Malaysia, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Cambodia, Brunei and Lao PDR. Several of our Regional Practices have also been cited as leading practices, including Singapore and Indonesia, where the practices received Elite ranking from Global Competition Review and Malaysia. Where we have no offices, such as India, Australia, the EU, Korea, Taiwan and Japan, we work with partners there. A snapshot of our primary offices are set out here:

Singapore

  • Led by Kala Anandarajah, BBM who is named Singapore’s Best Competition & Antitrust Lawyer 2015
  • Comprises experienced lawyers and economists with multi-jurisdictional qualifications and exposure, such as Tanya Tang, a Principal Economist who worked with the Competition Commission of Singapore and the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore
  • A dynamic, dedicated and sound team of associates, several with dual degrees in economics and engineering
  • Involved in every major investigation or merger and other notification in Singapore over the last decade, during which time the firm achieved many ‘firsts’, including the 1st appeal to the Appeal Board, 1st public notification decision, and 1st successful leniency involving international cartel
  • Advises extensively in all aspects of Competition & Antitrust Law from advisory to litigation
  • Involved in every aspect of compliance programmes more than a decade ago, from auditing and interviewing to training and final implementation across multiple industries

Indonesia

  • Led by HMBC Rikrik Rizkiyana and Farid Fauzi Nasution, this team is one of the largest competition teams in Indonesia and is widely recognised as being at the forefront of competition law in Indonesia
  • Comprises lawyers and economists who have worked with the regulator and who have seen the law and practice grow from its inception in 1999
  • Involved in every major cartel and abuse of dominance investigations in Indonesia
  • Advises extensively on mergers and the need for notifications
  • Undertakes various types of competition audits and market studies
  • Conduct regular competition law training and how businesses are affected

Malaysia

  • Led by Kuok Yew Chen and Yon See Ting
  • Comprises lawyers with international law firm experience and EU Competition law qualifications
  • Involved in a considerable number of audit and compliance with competition law for large corporations in the Aviation, Finance, Electronics, FMCG, Property, Pharmaceutical and Cement industries and for various trade associations
  • Advised on need for notifications on various acquisitions and joint ventures scenarios and review of agreements for vertical restraints
  • Advised telco provider on anti-competition provisions under the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998
  • Acted for multinational in the first application for individual exemption under the Competition Act 2010
  • Acted for corporations in investigations conducted by MyCC

Vietnam

  • Led by Vu Thi Que
  • Advises corporations extensively on competition compliance issues
  • Advises extensively on mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures and the need for notification to regulator and assists clients in every step of the notification process

Thailand

  • Led by Melisa Uremovic and Supawat Srirungruang
  • Advises corporations extensively on competition compliance issues
  • Reviews acquisitions and joint ventures for merger notifications

Brunei, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Philippines 

  • Emerging markets for competition laws where senior partners have been identified to lead for each country
  • Actively involved in several competition law projects in these countries

PRC

  • Led by Linda Qiao
  • Dedicated team of PRC and lawyers who have worked with international firms
  • Advised on merger notification requirements in acquisitions, joint ventures, etc
Competition Bites

Competition Bites is a new podcast series by our regional team that provides you with updates of key developments in competition law across South East Asia. This podcast series features short snippets of interesting competition law development and useful takeaways by our lawyers from across the region.

Listen to our Competition Bites podcast series here: [Anchor | Spotify | Youtube]

  • Episode 1: Does your distribution agreement comply with competition laws in Southeast Asia? Tune in here: [Anchor | Spotify | Youtube]
  • Episode 2: Merger Notifications in Southeast Asia: Do Not Ignore! Tune in here: [Anchor | Spotify | Youtube]
  • Episode 3: Competition Issues in the Digital Market in Southeast Asia. Tune in here: [Anchor | Spotify | Youtube]
  • Episode 4: Leveraging Free Trade Agreements in Southeast Asia. Tune in here: [Anchor | Spotify | Youtube]
  • Episode 5: Cartel Enforcement. Tune in here: [Anchor | Spotify | Youtube]
  • Regional Competition Conference 2023 Episode 1: Cartels, Abuse of Dominance and Unfair Trade Practices – Impact on Your Day-to-Day Business and Transactions in Thailand and the Region. Tune in here: [Anchor | Spotify | Youtube | Apple]
  • Regional Competition Conference 2023 Episode 2: How to manage a regional M&A transaction from a competition law perspective? Tune in here: [Anchor | Spotify | Youtube | Apple]
  • Regional Competition Conference 2023 Episode 3: Regulation of Personal Data, Collection of Data, Usage and Management of Data, and AI and the cross-over impact from competition laws – How can businesses manage this multi-prong regulatory environment with different regulators? Tune in here: [Anchor | Spotify | Youtube | Apple]
  • Regional Competition Conference 2023 Episode 4: Sustainability and ESG – When trade flows and supply chains are impacted given ESG concerns, how does one work around this? Tune in here: [Anchor | Spotify | Youtube | Apple]
  • Regional Competition Conference 2023 Episode 5: Ecommerce meets the reality of moving goods across borders – When Trade Moves from Physical to the E-world, what are the Trade, Customs, Consumer Protection and Other Regulatory Issues to deal with? Tune in here: [Anchor | Spotify | Youtube | Apple]