Thailand: Coming into force a new Trade Competition Act

Thailand: Coming into force a new Trade Competition Act By Clara Ingen-Housz  (Antitrust & Competition Partner, Linklaters, Hong Kong)

A new Trade Competition Act (the “Act”) has come into force in Thailand on 5 October 2017, replacing the previous law that was in place since 1999. Before the turn of the century, Thailand had been the first ASEAN nation to adopt a comprehensive competition law regime, albeit being under no external pressure to do so. By contrast, most of the neighbouring countries only came to pass competition laws in the following years because of more or less explicit requests from foreign governments or the International Monetary Fund.

Despite this Thai voluntarism, the first competition act proved to be relatively ineffective. Its implementation required lengthy court processes, resulting in just a few cases initiated over the years and ultimately, no successful prosecution. Acknowledging explicitly these shortcomings in the Act itself, the legislator adopted the new law with the aim to set up a more robust and flexible regime relying on an independent authority, operational merger control rules, and a deterrent set of administrative and criminal sanctions.

This article covers the new institutional and substantive framework, the revamped arsenal of sanctions and the challenges arising from the transition period.

• A new agency with wide powers

The Act creates a new enforcement agency, the Trade Competition Commission (“TCC”), s