Antitrust trials must happen faster: watchdog chief
The head of the antitrust watchdog on Sunday said that long waits for trials are making it difficult to enforce the SAR's competition legislation.  Speaking on a television programme, Samuel Chan, who chairs the Competition Commission, said the the watchdog had done its part in enforcing the law, filing 15 cases to the Competition Tribunal in the eight years since the legislation took full effect. However, Chan said it can take up to four years from filing a case to starting a full trial, leaving gaps in the interpretation of the SAR's law against anti-competitive practices. He said the watchdog presented a case related to textbook sales to the Competition Tribunal in 2020, but the trial is not scheduled to begin until April 2024. "We hope that the courts will establish the principles for Hong Kong's competition law as soon as they can. This way, we'll have our own interpretation of the competition law, because we can't assume that the principles of competition law from overseas or the mainland will automatically apply to Hong Kong," he added. Chan also said not all cases would be brought before the court, as some cases had been successfully resolved through settlements. He added the watchdog is ready to look at settlement proposals from the parties involved in a recent case related to real estate firm Midland Holdings and two of its subsidiaries, which were alleged to have fixed commission rates with rival Centaline Property and Ricacorp Properties.   The commission earlier announced that only Midland Holdings and its firms were being prosecuted so far, because Centaline had been granted leniency for coming to the commission first to provide evidence.