Service

We advise on antitrust and merger control issues that our clients face in their businesses. We assist our clients to strategize their business dealings with their distributors, customers, suppliers, contractors and sometime even competitors assisting them to understand and better manage their compliance efforts in relation to the Competition Act. Some of the issues we have advised:

• pricing, exclusive agreements, licensing, loyalty and discount schemes agreements, commercial arrangements;
• commercial agreements, joint ventures; and
• mergers and acquisitions, ancillary restraints, asset purchase agreements, takeovers or buyouts.

We assist our clients in conducting self-assessment exercises for their mergers (a requirement specified by the CCCS) and draft merger filings for submission to the CCCS.

We assist to identify potential competition law issues in a proposed merger transaction and help parties to address such issues efficiently. We adopt a holistic approach in assessing competition law risks within the applicable legislative and regulatory framework. We undertake pre-notification discussions and negotiations with the CCCS to expedite the merger filing process.

We have experience and the requisite contacts through our international law network to provide clients with a seamless merger filing coordination across multiple jurisdictions.

We analyse business practices to identify potential infringing agreements or conduct. Thereafter, we advise our clients on the merits of notifying their agreements or conduct to the CCCS and draft filings to the CCCS to put our client’s best case for a favourable decision or guidance from the CCCS.

We assist our clients to assess anti-competitive behavior committed in the market. After doing so, we advise our clients on what are the strategic best steps forward to protect their interests. This may include:

• Applying to the CCCS for leniency for clients involved in cartels;
• Filing complaints on behalf of clients of alleged violation of competition law so that the CCCS will step in as regulator to amend or prohibit the anti-competitive behaviour; and
• Conducting internal company investigations of suspected cartel behavior or abuse of dominance.

We advise clients on a broad spectrum of issues relating to investigations by the CCCS. Upon a dawn-raid or investigation notice issued by the CCCS, we will assist our clients on every step of the way until the CCCS closes the investigation or makes a decision. These include a multitude of matters such as conducting internal investigations on business activities and agreements, interview preparations, drafting responses to CCCS’ notices and queries as well as engaging with the CCCS regarding the investigation. Our approach in such matters is to allow our clients to put their best case forward to the CCCS in an efficient, truthful and complete manner.

We are also equipped to attend to actual dawn raids conducted by the CCCS against our clients within short notice to ensure our client’s interest are protected.

Our dawn raid hotline number is 65 6349 8727

Competition Compliance Programs are vital to a company’s risk management strategy. Such training programs play a key role in encouraging compliance and help mitigate against the infringement of competition legislation. We assist clients to develop bespoke competition compliance programs to suit the industry and sector in which they operate. Our compliance programs typically comprise of an audit, training and practice manual.

During the audit, we will conduct a thorough review of a company’s corporate background, market share, relevant communications, major agreements and it’s pricing and distribution strategy, thereby identifying areas of concerns and proposing appropriate actions to be taken under the company’s Competition Compliance Program.

We regularly conduct training programs for clients that are proactive in competition compliance. Typically, these would include seminar and role-playing methods. We can also conduct mock dawn-raids to tests the responsiveness of employees to prepare in case the offices are raided by the CCCS.

We also design specific competition compliance codes and guidelines for companies, depending on the industry they are operating in, so that employees have a main reference document in the basic aspects of competition law.