Building regional competition policy in ASEAN: lessons from the European Competition Network

The establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) should transform this regional association of states into “single market and production base, a highly competitive economic region, a region of equitable economic development, and a region fully integrated into the global economy” (AEC Blueprint). The present study analyzes the current level of progress in introducing a regional competition law and policy that would create a level playing field for the businesses within the AEC. The paper also addresses the functionality of current “ASEAN way” of coordinating the enforcement of the national competition laws across the ASEAN jurisdictions. The second part of the study outlines the experiences of the decade of decentralized enforcement of competition rules within the Internal Market of the European Union (EU) through cooperation and coordination between the EU Commission and national competition authorities (NCAs) of the EU Member States within the European Competition Network (ECN). Special focus of the research is on the “effect on trade”, which is used as a jurisdictional criterion that determines application of the EU competition rules and national competition rules. The lessons from the functioning of the ECN can be instructive for the development of the regional framework for competition law and policy in the AEC and wider Asia-Pacific region, where the growing number of the national competition law regimes require cooperation and coordination among the NCAs and more generally between the states under the multitude of regional free trade agreements and bilateral investment treaties, which often contain competition enforcement obligations.