TAIWAN Trends and Developments Contributed by: Stephen Wu, Yvonne Hsieh, Wei-Han Wu and Erica Chiu, Lee and Li, Attorneys-at-Law
Emphasis on Environmental Sustainability Issues To assist enterprises in understanding whether their business practices on environmental sus - tainability constitute concerted actions under the TFTA, and to ensure free and fair competi - tion in the market, the TFTC issued the “Guide - lines on Concerted Actions in the Context of Environmental Sustainability” (the ”Guidelines”) on 19 February 2025. Although the Guidelines focus primarily on issues related to concerted actions and environmental sustainability, they reflect the TFTC’s recent enforcement stance, emphasising environmental sustainability issues. In this regard, it is foreseeable that the TFTC may extend this enforcement stance to merger control reviews involving environmental sustain - ability issues in the future. Based on the key strategies for achieving the 2050 net-zero emissions target, the Guidelines map out likely scenarios of future business prac - tices in this regard, identify the potential com - petitive issues, and then lay out the determina - tion process for such issues. The Guidelines also identify the following three types of business activities as examples for enterprises to consider in order to reduce the risk of violations. • Activities involving no mutual restraint of trade and no concerns of concerted actions, such as: (a) sharing information on environmental sustainability and delivering materials that are irrelevant to business operations or competition, such as exchanging the lat - est government policies and information on subsidies from industry authorities for environmental sustainability transforma- tion; (b) advocating environmental sustainability achievements and holding relevant joint
TFTC will continue to look at how other countries develop a more objective and even quantitative analysis, with a view to improve enforcement. Building upon the White Paper, a study entitled “Research on the Empirical Analysis of Collusive Behaviours in Pricing Strategies in the Digital Economy” (the ”Pricing Strategies Research”) constitutes a continuation of the enforcement principles and stances articulated in the White Paper. The Pricing Strategies Research released by the TFTC was honoured by the renowned international competition law publisher Concur - rences at the 2025 Antitrust Writing Awards. This serves as a strong indication of the international recognition for the TFTC’s enforcement and policy positions. The Pricing Strategies Research aims primarily to elucidate the relationship between algorithmic pricing and concerted actions under the TFTA, examining the impact of algorithms on pricing within the digital retail market. It focuses spe - cifically on identifying whether retail enterprises employ algorithmic pricing, whether such algo - rithms facilitate collusive behaviour, and the manner in which algorithms may assist in the co-ordination of such behaviour. Notably, the Pricing Strategies Research aligns with the “local nexus” enforcement principle set forth in the White Paper, emphasising the use of empirical data derived from the Taiwan - ese market as its foundational basis. Although the study centres on issues related to collusive behaviours, it demonstrates the TFTC’s empha - sis on economic analysis in cases involving the digital economy. Consequently, it is foreseeable that the TFTC may place particular emphasis on economic analysis and empirical data based on the Taiwanese market in future merger control reviews involving the digital economy sector.
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