A Comparison Study On The Anti-monopoly Review System Of Concentration Of Business Operators Of China And Singapore

Concentration of business operators is an important way to achieve business expansion.As two Asian countries with the similar culture background,China and Singapore,started the censorship of concentration of business operators in 2008 and2007 respectively.At institutional level,prospective merger in China has to declare ex ante,but the counterpart in Singapore can report voluntarily.The procedures and time limit for declaration have subtle differences for these two countries.From the perspective of legal practice,since the promulgation of Anti-Monopoly Law of People's Republic of China and as of 2016,Ministry of Commerce of China has conditionally approved 28 cases and forbidden 2 cases among the all censorship resolution announcements for concentration of business operators.Yet since the 54 clauses regarding merging took effect in Singapore,Competition Commission of Singapore has heard 54 cases with intact and clear examination process.This paper tries to compare the results and time duration of review in these two countries,based on the analyses of the cases which last the shortest time duration and have the longest procedure in Singapore.In addition,we try to understand the review process of 3 cases which were forbidden by the two countries.We find that their processes have great differences although with the same result.Based on the analyses,we try to propose several advice for the improvement of China's review system of concentration of business operators.First,Ministry of Commerce of China should explicitly stipulate the review contents in different stageof Two Stage Trial and elements for competition analysis and it should ensure the security of companies' classifies information when exposing some detailed information.Second,Ministry of Commerce should provide the prospective mergers with clear guidance before declaration and give its opinions regarding the merger's influence on the competition level in the market in the announcement.Third,we should improve the procedure of the involvement of the third party.