Competition Law Takes Off in Singapore: An Analysis of Two Recent Decisions

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

Burton Ong of the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law has written about developments in Singaporian competition policy in his article  Competition Law Takes Off in Singapore: An Analysis of Two Recent Decisions, which focuses on two cases involving agreements among airlines.

ABSTRACT: The first two decisions by the Competition Commission of Singapore, issued in the first quarter of 2007, represent important milestones in the implementation of competition law in Singapore since the enactment of the Competition Act 2004. Both cases involved cooperation agreements between airline operators who had sought negative clearance through the Commission’s notification process. This article provides an overview of the legal and policy background behind the new competition regime and, in particular, explains how the new statutory provisions concerned with anticompetitive agreements were applied to the two notified agreements described above. An analysis of these two cases is also conducted to illustrate how the competition regulator has interpreted the relevant competition law principles in the course of its decision-making process.