In the rapidly growing Asian region, competition policies and laws have started to play a vital role in building the infrastructure for a market-based economy. Thailand and Indonesia have adopted a competition law in 1999. India followed in 2002. Singapore and Vietnam followed in 2004. China, Malaysia and Hong Kong introduced a competition law in 2007, 2010 and 2012 respectively. ASEAN Member States have committed themselves to introduce competition policies and laws by 2015 and actually did so (e.g. Philippines, Laos, and Brunei (Cambodia still finalizing the draft)). Japan, Korea and Taiwan, to the contrary, have a much longer history with competition policy and law. Japan was forced, by the Allied Powers, to adopt a competition policy and law in 1947. Korea enacted its competition law in 1980. Taiwan followed about a decade later and adopted its competition law in 1992.

Among these countries, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan have also created leniency policies. Without doubt, this turn towards leniency policies is inspired by the claimed success of the leniency policies in the United States and the European Union. In the end, representatives of the enforcement agencies in these jurisdictions have been positive about this enforcement tool. For example, James Griffin praised leniency for leading to an increase in the number of cartel prosecutions and the amount of fines imposed in the United States. Philip Lowe, detailing the history of European cartel enforcement, indicated that the real change in enforcement came with the adoption of leniency.

Despite the positive tone in the enforcement agencies’ evaluations of their respective leniency policy, there is a growing body of scholarship questioning the positive evaluation. The positive evaluation is mainly based on enforcement data.[3] A sole focus on enforcement data may be misleading to address the effectiveness of leniency policies.[4] Such an evaluation, according to Maurice Stucke, does not address the individuals that engage in the cartels or that decide to apply for leniency.

Stucke is not alone in his critique. There is skepticism among other scholars writing on leniency policies. Daniel Sokol has identified strategic use of leniency in the United States. Andreas Stephan has criticized leniency applications in the EU for following an investigation into cartel activity by the US antitrust agency. Caron Beaton-Wells has meticulously described the interpretational complexity of the Australian leniency program and combined that with practitioners’ views on its operation, to conclude that leniency may not be the enforcement tool to exclusively rely on. Still another study has revealed the inability of a leniency policy to trigger a race to the enforcement agencies.

Against this background, the book aims to critically evaluate the leniency policies adopted in China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. Therefore, we are looking for contributions that detail the conceptualization of each of these countries’ leniency policy. The policies could be further analyzed by contrasting the conceptualization of these policies with what is considered the ‘best practices’ for leniency. This could be an evaluation based upon the best practices developed under the auspices of international or transnational organizations, such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and International Competition Network. Another framework could be the guidelines developed by UNCTAD in relation to leniency policies and developing countries.

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