Competition Law 彙整 - Page 2 of 3

2021 年 12 月 1 日

FTC Penalized Agoda’s Use of Competitor’s Name for Keyword Advertising (Taiwan)

Aaron Chen & Sally Yang The TFTC rendered a disposition of November 4, 2021, holding that Agoda's use of the corporate name of a competitor for its keyword advertisement with the heading that depicts the corporate name of Easytravel in parallel with Agoda's website URL in the advertisement. Since this is an obviously unfair method sufficient to undermine trading order, a fine of NT$1 million was imposed for violation of Article 25 of the Fair Trade Act.

2021 年 12 月 1 日

The Fair Trade Commission levies punishment on Carrefour for soliciting sponsorship for the opening of its new store (Taiwan)

Aaron Chen and Julian Lai The Fair Trade Commission held that Carrefour’s sponsorship solicitation for newly opened stores from suppliers who had been supplying Wellcome's 196 supermarkets before their acquisition by Carrefour via its merger with Wellcome constitutes unfair behaviors of considerable impact on transactions order. As such, Carrefouris in violation of Article 25 of the Fair Trade Act.

2021 年 12 月 1 日

The Fair Trade Commission’s Investigation on Apple (Taiwan)

Aaron Chen and Julian Lai The Fair Trade Commission has begun investigating Apple’s decision not to include accessories when selling new iPhones and Apple’s transactional fee for software developers on App Store and its exclusive payment policy. The result of this investigation is worth following.

2021 年 12 月 1 日

The Fair Trade Commission’s investigation on Citibank (Taiwan)

Aaron Chen and Julian Lai The Fair Trade Commission will file an investigative report on Citibank’s contract with potential buyers requiring them to not recruit Citibank’s employees. The issue of this so-called No-Poaching Agreement has recently attracted authorities’ attention in the US and Japan. However, There were no relevant cases in Taiwan, so this investigation report is worthy of attention.

2021 年 10 月 1 日

Fair Trade Commission amends merger filing’s requirements and provides merger filing pre-consulting service (Taiwan)

Aaron Chen & Sally Yang The Fair Trade Committee (FTC) has enacted on August 17 of 2021 the ” Guidelines of FTC’s pre-consulting services for merger filing,” and on August 24 of the same year, issued amendments on “Notice for […]

2021 年 9 月 1 日

The Fair Trade Commission Does Not Prohibit the 3.5 GHz Frequency and Network Sharing Between Far EasTone and Asia Pacific but Impose Conditions for the Merger (Taiwan)

Aaron Chen and Sally Yang The Fair Trade Commission (hereinafter “FTC”) decided in their 1555th meeting resolution on August 4th, 2021 not to prohibit the merger between Far EasTone Telecommunications Co., Ltd. (hereinafter “FET”) and Asia Pacific Telecommunications Co., Ltd […]

2021 年 8 月 1 日

The FTC plans to set up a task force to conduct an industry investigation of digital platforms (Taiwan)

Aaron Chen and Sally Yang The Fair Trade Commission (hereinafter, the “FTC”) adopted a resolution during the Commissioners’ Meeting on June 30, 2021 to set up a task force to conduct a comprehensive industry investigation of digital platforms, which will […]

2021 年 6 月 1 日

Constraining competitors from participating in competition through an exclusive distribution agreement will constitute a concerted action under the Fair Trade Law (Taiwan)

Aaron Chen & Sally Yang[1] With respect to the case involving the concerted action of three pharmaceutical companies, namely, TTY Biopharm Co., Ltd. (hereinafter, “Company A”), Lotus Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (hereinafter, “Company B”), and Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (hereinafter, “Company […]

2020 年 12 月 1 日

Anti-Monopoly Compliance Guidelines for Business Operators (Mainland China)

Karl Zhang On September 11, 2020, the Anti-Monopoly Commission of the State Council issued the Anti-Monopoly Compliance Guidelines for Business Operators (the “Guidelines”), which will go into effect on the day of their promulgation. The Guidelines are highlighted as follows: […]

2020 年 7 月 1 日

The contents of a disposition that demands rectification within a stated period should be clear in order to serve as the basis of continuous penalties (Taiwan)

Sean Tsou The Supreme Administrative Court rendered the 109-Pan-24 Decision of January 20, 2020 (hereinafter, the “Decision”), holding that if a competent authority renders an administrative disposition that demands rectification within a stated period, the contents of the disposition should […]

2020 年 5 月 1 日

If the names, trade names or company names of others are not generally known to relevant enterprises or consumers, the use of such identical or similar name can hardly be found to constitute unfair competition (Taiwan)

Oli Wong The Supreme Court rendered the 108-Tai-Shang-1878-Zi Decision of December 19, 2019 (hereinafter, the “Decision”), holding that if the names, trade names or company names of others are not generally known to relevant enterprises or consumers, the use of […]

2020 年 3 月 1 日

The infringement of a company’s right of name is not limited to the use of the same name, and lawful registration cannot be asserted as a defense for disputes over similar company names (Taiwan)

Elva Chuang The Intellectual Property Court rendered the 108-Min-Kong-Shang-2 Decision of July 1, 2019 (hereinafter, the “Decision”), holding that the infringement of a company’s right of name is not limited to the use of the same name, and lawful registration […]

2019 年 11 月 30 日

If the preferential offerings stressed in an enterprise’s advertisements are sufficient to cause misperceptions, even though the consumers subsequently understand the complete information, this is still sufficient to conclude that false advertising is conducted to the extent of undermining market trading order (Taiwan)

Alex Liao The Supreme Administrative Court rendered the 108-Pan-232 Decision of May 10, 2019 (hereinafter, the “Decision”), holding that if the preferential offerings stressed in an enterprise’s advertisements are sufficient to cause misperceptions, even though the consumers are subsequently provided […]

2019 年 6 月 30 日

To determine whether the launch of the drug at issue by an enterprise which uses a package similar to other drugs with the same functions in the market constitutes an act of unfair competition which confuses the consumers and undermines the trading order, the Supreme Court held that factors such as the business trading practices for prescription drugs, industry characteristics and the placement location of the advertisement for the drug at issue should be generally considered. (Taiwan)

2019.1.31 Elva Chuang The Supreme Court rendered the 107-Tai-Shang-1967 Civil Decision of January 31, 2019 (hereinafter, the “Decision”), holding that if an enterprise uses an appearance or feature highly plagiarizing a well-known product of another party, exploits the fruit of […]

2019 年 5 月 31 日

If messages on a price comparison platform are hyperlinked to other operators’ websites, the users should be able to learn about the sources of information with names and logos as differentiators; and, therefore, there is no deceptive act of active duping or passive concealment of important trading information (Taiwan)

2019.2.14 Sean Liu The Intellectual Property Court rendered the 107-Min-Gong-Shang-1 Civil Decision of February 14, 2019 (hereinafter, the “Decision”), holding that the prohibited deceptive act in Article 25 of the Fair Trade Law, which provides: “Except as otherwise stipulated under […]

2018 年 8 月 31 日

Since an integrated search platform for real estate rental and sales information still requires an intermediary company in order to engage in a transaction and such system is not used to win trading opportunities for intermediaries, it should not be generally alleged that this constitutes unfair competition because a certain degree of competition exists (Taiwan)

2018.4.25 Sean Liu The Supreme Court rendered the 106-Tai-Shang-1431 Civil Decision of April 25, 2018 (hereinafter, the “Decision”), holding that under Article 25 of the Fair Trade Law (hereinafter, the “Law”), an enterprise shall not engage in any deceptive or […]

2018 年 7 月 31 日

A concerted action should be preconditioned by its ability to affect market functions with respect to production, trade in goods or service provision; and whether it has reached the extent of affecting market functions should be generally determined by the criteria of quality and quantity (Taiwan)

2018.4.12 Sean Liu The Supreme Administrative Court rendered the 107-Pan-187 Decision of April 12, 2018 (hereinafter, the “Decision”), holding that the concerted action under Article 14 of the Fair Trade Law should be preconditioned by its ability to affect market […]

2018 年 6 月 30 日

Stopping illegal and unfair competitive acts of others through approaches which are peaceful and meet the principle of proportionality such as reporting legal violations is a justified exercise of rights under Article 45 of the Fair Trade Law (Taiwan)

2018.4.16 Sean Liu The Intellectual Property Court rendered the 106-Min-Gong-Su-8 Civil Decision of April 16, 2018 (hereinafter, the “Decision”), holding that Article 45 of the Fair Trade Law stipulates that a justified exercise of rights pursuant to the Copyright Law, […]

2018 年 5 月 16 日

Getting the Deal Through: Dominance 2018 – Taiwan

Getting the Deal Through: Dominance 2018 – Taiwan 《Accreditatio》 Reproduced with permission from Law Business Research Ltd. This article was first published in Getting the Deal Through – Dominance 2018 (Published: April 2018). For further information please visit www.gettingthedealthrough.com.

2018 年 4 月 27 日

Potential competitors refer to those who may enter the market for competition and may pose competitive pressure on existing players in the market (Taiwan)

2018.2.8 Sean Liu The Intellectual Property Court rendered the 106-Min-Gong-Shang-2 Civil Decision of February 8, 2018 (hereinafter, the “Decision”), holding that potential competitors refer to those who may enter the market for competition and may pose competitive pressure on existing […]

2017 年 12 月 18 日

Full translation of Taiwan Fair Trade Commission’s Decision on Qualcomm Case

https://www.leetsai.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/TFTC-Qualcomm-Decision-Dissenting-Opinions.pdf

2017 年 11 月 30 日

The one whose legal rights or interests would directly or indirectly suffer from the result of a lawsuit may intervene in the lawsuit on an auxiliary basis pursuant to law(Taiwan)

2017.8.31 Sean Liu The Supreme Administrative Law rendered the 106-Cai-1672 Ruling of August 31, 2017 (hereinafter, the “Ruling”), holding that the one whose legal rights or interests would directly or indirectly suffer from the result of a lawsuit may intervene […]

2017 年 10 月 31 日

Constraining resale prices of downstream distributors without justification is an illegal unfair competitive act (Taiwan)

2017.8.2 Sean Liu The Taipei High Administrative Court rendered the 106-Su-336 Decision of August 2, 2017 (hereinafter, the “Decision”), holding that constraining resale prices of downstream distributors without justification is an illegal act of unfair competition. According to the facts […]

2017 年 9 月 30 日

Even though an enterprise winning transaction opportunities through false advertising provides supplemental or corrective explanation to its trading counterparts, the liability for false advertising still cannot be released(Taiwan)

2017.7.6 Sean Liu The Taipei High Administrative Court rendered the 106-Su-391 Decision of July 6, 2017 (hereinafter, the “Decision”), holding that even though an enterprise winning transaction opportunities through false advertising provides supplemental or corrective explanation to its trading counterparts, […]

2017 年 8 月 31 日

The Fair Trade Law was amended to require the Fair Trade Commission to solicit relevant opinions in case of a hostile takeover(Taiwan)

2017.6.14 Sean Liu The President promulgated Article 11, as amended, of the Fair Trade Law (hereinafter, the “Law”) via the Hua-Zhong-One-Yi-10600073211 Directive of June 14, 2017. The focus of this amendment is on the period in which the Fair Trade […]

2017 年 8 月 8 日

State Council Opinions on Establishing A Fair Competition Review System in the Development of Market-oriented Systems(Mainland China)

James Cheng On June 14, 2016, the State Council promulgated its Opinions on Establishing A Fair Competition Review System in the Development of Market-oriented Systems (hereinafter, the “Opinions”), which may be said to show how antitrust is beginning to extend […]

2017 年 8 月 8 日

Although an actor and an enterprise do not have any legal relationship, if the actor causes the enterprise not to engage in price competition or to participate in a merger or concerted action by improper means, such act will constitute impediment to fair competition(Taiwan)

Jane Tsai The Ministry of Labor required in 2005 that an employer seeking to hire foreign nationals should first recruit domestically and stipulated that domestic job offer advertisements could be placed only in four major newspapers, namely the Apple Daily, […]

2017 年 8 月 8 日

For a trademark holder who has rushed trademark registration application for an almost identical and imitated and plagiarized device, the trademark holder is still subject to the Fair Trade Law if the exercise of trademark right is abusive(Taiwan)

Jane Tsai The Intellectual Property Court rendered the 104-Min-Kong-Su-5 Civil Decision of February 2, 2016 (hereinafter, the “Decision”), holding that the Defendant had rushed to register a device (hereinafter, the “Device at Issue”) created in an attempt to imitate and […]

2017 年 8 月 8 日

The failure of a customer to sign an agreement on a quarterly basis as it used to the extent that the seller chooses another distributor under such circumstance is a normal and reasonable business consideration and is not an abuse of market position(Taiwna)

Sean Liu The Supreme Administrative Court rendered the 104-Pan-54 Decision of January 29, 2015 (hereinafter, the “Decision”), holding that the failure of a customer to sign an agreement on a quarterly basis as it used to the extent that the […]

2017 年 8 月 8 日

Antitrust Guidelines for the Automobile Industry (Solicitation for Opinions) (Mainland China)

James Cheng On March 23, 2016, the Anti-Monopoly Commission of the State Council promulgated the Solicitation for Opinions on the Anti-monopoly Guidelines for Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights (hereinafter, the “Guidelines”), in which opinions were solicited from the public from […]