1. Each Party shall adopt or maintain competition laws that proscribe
anticompetitive business conduct, with the objective of promoting
economic efficiency and consumer welfare, and shall take appropriate
action with respect to such conduct.
2. Each Party shall maintain an authority responsible for the
enforcement of its national competition laws. The enforcement policy of
each Party’s national competition authorities is not to discriminate on
the basis of the nationality of the subjects of their proceedings. Each
Party shall ensure that:
(a) before it imposes a sanction or remedy against any person for
violating its competition law, it affords the person the right to be
heard and to present evidence, except that it may provide for the
person to be heard and present evidence within a reasonable time
after it imposes an interim sanction or remedy; and
(b) an independent court or tribunal imposes or, at the person’s
request, reviews any such sanction or remedy.
3. Nothing in this Chapter shall be construed to infringe each
Party’s autonomy in developing its competition policies or in deciding
how to enforce its competition laws.
1. The Parties agree to cooperate in the area of competition policy.
The Parties recognize the importance of cooperation and coordination
between their respective authorities to further effective competition
law enforcement in the free trade area. Accordingly, the Parties shall
cooperate on issues of competition law enforcement, including
notification, consultation, and exchange of information relating to the
enforcement of the Parties’ competition laws and policies.
1. Nothing in this Chapter shall be construed to prevent a Party from
designating a monopoly.
2. Where a Party designates a monopoly and the designation may affect
the interests of persons of the other Party, the Party shall:
(a) at the time of the designation endeavor to introduce such
conditions on the operation of the monopoly as will minimize or
eliminate any nullification or impairment of benefits in the sense
of Annex 22.2 (Nullification or Impairment); and
(b) provide written notification, in advance wherever possible, to
the other Party of the designation and any such conditions.
3. Each Party shall ensure that any privately-owned monopoly that it
designates after the date of entry into force of this Agreement and any
government monopoly that it designates or has designated:
(a) acts in a manner that is not inconsistent with the Party’s
obligations under this Agreement wherever such a monopoly exercises
any regulatory, administrative, or other governmental authority that
the Party has delegated to it in connection with the monopoly good
or service, such as the power to grant import or export licenses,
approve commercial transactions, or impose quotas, fees, or other
charges;
(b) acts solely in accordance with commercial considerations in its
purchase or sale of the monopoly good or service in the relevant
market, including with regard to price, quality, availability,
marketability, transportation, and other terms and conditions of
purchase or sale, except to comply with any terms of its designation
that are not inconsistent with subparagraph (c) or (d);
(c) provides non-discriminatory treatment to covered investments, to
goods of the other Party, and to service suppliers of the other
Party in its purchase or sale of the monopoly good or service in the
relevant market; and
(d) does not use its monopoly position to engage, either directly or
indirectly, including through its dealings with its parent,
subsidiaries, or other enterprises with common ownership, in
anticompetitive practices in a nonmonopolized market in its
territory that adversely affect covered investments.
4. This Article does not apply to procurement.
1. Nothing in this Agreement shall be construed to prevent a Party
from establishing or maintaining a state enterprise.
2. Each Party shall ensure that any state enterprise that it establishes
or maintains acts in a manner that is not inconsistent with the Party’s
obligations under this Agreement wherever such enterprise exercises any
regulatory, administrative, or other governmental authority that the
Party has delegated to it, such as the power to expropriate, grant
licenses, approve commercial transactions, or impose quotas, fees, or
other charges.
3. Each Party shall ensure that any state enterprise that it establishes
or maintains accords non-discriminatory treatment in the sale of its
goods or services to covered investments.
The charging of different prices in different markets, or within the
same market, where such differences are based on normal commercial
considerations, such as taking account of supply and demand conditions,
is not in itself inconsistent with Articles 16.3 and 16.4.
1. The Parties recognize the value of transparency of government
competition policies.
2. On request, each Party shall make available to the other Party public
information concerning its:
(a) competition law enforcement activities; and
(b) state enterprises and designated monopolies, public or private,
at any level of government.
Requests under subparagraph (b) shall indicate the entities or
localities involved, specify the particular products and markets
concerned, and include indicia of practices that may restrict trade
or investment between the Parties.
3. On request, each Party shall make available to the other Party
public information concerning exemptions provided under its competition
laws. Requests shall specify the particular goods and markets of
interest and include indicia that the exemption may restrict trade or
investment between the Parties.
1. To foster understanding between the Parties, or to address
specific matters that arise under this Chapter, each Party shall, on
request of the other Party, enter into consultations regarding
representations made by the other Party. In its request, the Party shall
indicate, if relevant, how the matter affects trade or investment
between the Parties. The Party addressed shall accord full and
sympathetic consideration to the concerns of the other Party.
1. Neither Party may have recourse to dispute settlement under this
Agreement for any matter arising under Article 16.1, 16.2, or 16.7.
For purposes of this Chapter:
a delegation includes a legislative grant, and a government
order, directive, or other act, transferring to the monopoly or state
enterprise, or authorizing the exercise by the monopoly or state
enterprise of, governmental authority;
designate means to establish, designate, or authorize, formally
or in effect, a monopoly or to
expand the scope of a monopoly to cover an additional good or service;
government monopoly means a monopoly that is owned, or controlled
through ownership interests, by the national government of a Party or by
another such monopoly;
in accordance with commercial considerations means consistent
with normal business practices of privately-held enterprises in the
relevant business or industry;
market means the geographic and commercial market for a good or
service;
monopoly means an entity, including a consortium or government
agency, that in any relevant market in the territory of a Party is
designated as the sole provider or purchaser of a good or service, but
does not include an entity that has been granted an exclusive
intellectual property right solely by reason of such grant;
and non-discriminatory treatment means the better of national
treatment and most-favored nation treatment, as set out in the relevant
provisions of this Agreement. |
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