Hello and welcome to the latest in Emlex's ongoing series of podcasts. I'm Leon Eamlex's

chief global antitrust correspondent. If you're a regular listener to our

podcast, welcome back. Normally I come to you from Washington, D.C., but this week, I'm in our

Bureau in Hong Kong. Hong Kong is one of the most developed cities in the region, but believe it or not,

it has lagged behind other jurisdictions when it comes to antitrust. It took more than two decades

of debate before a competition law finally came into force here in

2015. Now, three years later, it's up for its first major review. Here with me now to talk about that

is Emma's correspondent Zhu Wan. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Leah. So Zhuan, what is Hong Kong's

competition regulator doing to prepare for the government review of the law?

So we recently sat down with the CEO of Competition Commission in Hong Kong, Brent Snyder,

and we talked about these issues.

From our conversation, the Competition Commission has set up an internal working group

to look at the competition ordinance from top to bottom to assess

not only its position on the three items that the government has indicated it will be reviewing,

but also other issues related to the ordinance that it thinks based on its experience of applying

the law and working with it to date might warrant consideration for change.

The group has been slowly working through the ordinance to identify areas they might consider

proposing to the government if they are consulted on this review. It will be a checklist of issues

that will discuss with the government if they are given an opportunity.

So has the Commission identified any areas yet where it might propose changes?

Yes, there are three well-known issues that the government has explicitly said it will review.

I'll come to those in just a minute.

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