News & Announcements

W&P Newsletter – Indonesian Antitrust Alert – Electronic Settlement of Antitrust Cases

April 28, 2020 News

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the Indonesia Competition Supervisory Commission – Komisi Pengawas Persaingan Usaha (“KPPU”) has issued KPPU Decision No. 12/KPPU/Kep.1/IV/2020 on Antitrust Cases Handling amid COVID-19 Outbreak  and KPPU Regulation No. 1 of 2020 on Electronic Settlement of Cases (“KPPU Regulation”), allowing KPPU to prioritize the use of the electronic media, including video conference and electronic mail (e-mail), when handling both existing and new anti-trust cases during the outbreak. We believe this would significantly help KPPU to accelerate the antitrust proceedings as well as assessment of merger notifications.

The coverage of the KPPU Regulation includes the following:

Matters Scope
Merger Notifications
  1. Merger notification assessment, including written consultation, submission of notification, KPPU’s opinion and KPPU’s decision; and
  2. Examination of late submissions of merger notifications.
Partnerships (Kemitraan)
  1. Supervision of partnerships; and
  2. Examination of partnership cases.
Antitrust Cases (i) alleged violations of the Anti-Trust Law (ii) late submissions of merger reports; and (iii) partnership cases, including:

  1. report submission;
  2. clarification;
  3. investigation;
  4. examination; and
  5. supervision of the change of behavior commitment.
KPPU Panel Hearings
(Sidang Majelis KPPU)		 All of the above

 

Here are the highlights of the above-mentioned KPPU Regulation on Electronic Settlement of Cases:

  1. For the purpose of the Panel Hearings, the parties are now allowed to submit their evidence, including witness’ testimonies or expert opinion through electronic media. KPPU Regulation explicitly requires all necessary submissions to be handed in at the latest during the relevant Panel Hearing, and the KPPU Regulation also allows KPPU to forward the documents to other parties;
  2. KPPU Regulation allows summonses and KPPU’s decisions to be served upon the parties by email or video conference. As regards KPPU’s decisions, KPPU is authorized to pronounce a decision by video conference (and such pronouncement via video conference is deemed to have been made in a public hearing) and the date of the pronouncement will be notified to the parties through their Electronic Domicile (email) and announced to the public on KPPU’s website;
  3. Please note, however, that the KPPU Regulation is silent on KPPU’s responsibility and liability for the confidentiality of the Electronic Documents and all evidence submitted through the electronic media. Hence, clients need to be fully aware that any leak of these documents or information to any unauthorized parties will be at their own risk, despite the clients’ right to ask the KPPU Panel not to disclose nor forward these documents through electronic media during the hearing.

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