EU competition law : a roadmap for ASEAN?

The European Union’s competition policy and legal regime is instrumental in the functioning of the single market in the EU. The member states accepted to transfer decision-making power to the European Commission to allow for effective enforcement of competition law, crucial for the well-functioning of the Single Market. In contrast, there is not yet a region-wide ASEAN competition legal regime and the policy landscape in ASEAN is quite different from that of the EU. However, ASEAN in moving towards an ASEAN Economic Community, have acknowledged the need to introduce nation-wide competition law and policy by 2015 in its Economic Blueprint. One of the objectives of the ASEAN Economic Community is to create a competitive economic region which promotes a culture of fair competition. Nevertheless, there are fears that without reforms in the institutional arrangements on compliance and enforcement of rules and regulations, the developments in the field of competition law will remain words, without any teeth. This working paper aims at analysing whether EU competition law could serve as a template for ASEAN. It argues that ASEAN can look at the EU experience and use the EU competition law regime as a source or reference for developing its own model of competition policy and legal instruments. However the development of ASEAN’s own competition regime will not follow exactly the roadmap of the EU due to the different approaches towards regional economic integration, legislative frameworks and institutional structures. The paper also examines possible lessons from EU competition law regime and the most appropriate solutions for a successful ASEAN competition law regime