Lee, Byung Geon; Li, Ke --- "Overview of Asia and Africa" [2010] ELECD 768; in Foer, A. Albert; Cuneo, W. Jonathan (eds), "The International Handbook on Private Enforcement of Competition Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: The International Handbook on Private Enforcement of Competition Law

Editor(s): Foer, A. Albert; Cuneo, W. Jonathan

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848448773

Section: Chapter 28

Section Title: Overview of Asia and Africa

Author(s): Lee, Byung Geon; Li, Ke

Number of pages: 8

Extract:

28 Overview of Asia and Africa
Byung Geon Lee1 and Ke Li2


The intensity of private antitrust enforcement across the Asian and African nations has
a wide range of variation. In Australia, Israel, Japan, and Korea, the number of private
damages actions has gradually increased. Many private actions in those nations are initi-
ated following the competition agencies' finding of antitrust violations. For example, the
Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) annually finds approximately 40 cartels guilty,
and private parties have commonly brought damages actions after the KFTC's correc-
tive measures. In contrast, private antitrust enforcement of many other countries in these
regions remains inactive in tandem with the comparatively weak public enforcement
regimes. To the extent that private enforcement is restrained, this seems to be in large
part the result of the limited ability of private parties to gather evidence independently.
Asian and African nations' private antitrust enforcement procedures also have broad
variations. For example, class action procedures, which can provide workable litigation
mechanisms for the mass wrongs of competition law, are varying. The opt-out class
action mechanism is available in Australia, Israel, Indonesia, and South Africa; however,
no antitrust damages actions have been filed in the latter two countries utilizing this opt-
out device as of May 2009. Most other Asian and African jurisdictions have a traditional
opt-in class action mechanism, under which each injured party must individually express
his or her interest in participating in the action. As a third method, Indonesia, Japan,
Korea, and ...