In brief
- MyCC issues final market review report on wholesale and retail sectors
MyCC highlights eight competition issues in the market review report and hints at potential increased collaboration with other governmental agencies to tackle competition issues.
This update was published on 16 October 2020 as part of our quarterly newsletter, Asia Pacific Competition Highlights. Click here to access the full report, which covers the most notable antitrust developments across 11 Asia Pacific jurisdictions.
MyCC issues final market review report on the wholesale and retail sectors
On 19 August 2020, the Malaysian antitrust regulator (“MyCC”) issued its final report (“Final Report”) on the market review of the wholesale and retail trade sectors. The market review focused on food and beverages, household cleaning products, personal care and toiletries, and clothing.
MyCC highlighted eight competition concerns in the Final Report:
- downstream buyer power of large supermarkets
- manufacturers or suppliers having strong market power
- bundling of low-demand products with hot-selling items
- resale price maintenance
- exclusive distribution
- collusion by some competing firms
- predatory pricing with the intent of driving competing firms out of the market
- price discrimination
The Final Report recognized that these competition concerns arose because of market-driven issues (e.g., high cost of operation, the imposition of back margin in trading terms) and regulatory-driven issues (e.g., limited awareness of competition law and consumer protection laws generally). The Final Report proposed various recommendations in response to these issues, including having periodical reviews and updates of policies and regulations governing the wholesale and retail trade sectors and increase communications between government and industry.
Based on the Final Report and MyCC’s announcements on the Final Report, we anticipate a potential increase in MyCC’s collaboration with other governmental agencies to identify competition risks, and further guidelines or policies to be issued in relation to the wholesale and retail trade.
