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Full Length Research Paper
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Doctrine of
corporate governance and competition laws: The Malaysian
perspectives
Choong Kwai Fatt, Edward Wong Sek
Khin* and Priscilla Yap
Faculty of
Business and Accountancy, University of Malaya, Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia.
*Corresponding
author. E-mail:
edwardwong@graduate.uwa.edu.au.
Accepted 6 May, 2010 |
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Abstract |
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This study examines the issues of competition law in Malaysia.
These issues had challenges not only in its goal towards a
market economy, but also in its national re-engineering of the
economy under Malaysia’s industrialization plan. Malaysia has
reached now reached that goal. The main issues were the
impediments as to whether or not to introduce a structured,
broader competition law in Malaysia. Often, in Malaysia, when
markets were unable or unwilling to provide goods, services, or
competition, the State became involved in the establishing of a
free market. Malaysia has done this in its Capital Market Master
plan, and the pressing challenges were on local trade issues.
The trade barrier issues in Malaysia were different, as unique
issues concerned culturally and historically based protection
zones. Documents from several Articles (81 and 82) of the
European Community Treaty, a variety of United States statutes
such as The Sherman Antitrust Act, The Clayton Antitrust Act,
The Federal Trade Commission Act and The Antitrust Criminal
Penalty Enhancement and Reform Act of 2004, and also Malaysian
government guidelines were scrutinized in studying and
establishing The Doctrine of Malaysia’s Competition aw, with its
various attributes in illustrating corporate governance. The
citation of three case studies to illustrate how competition
legislation worked in the EU, UK, US and Malaysia provided the
foundation of the new laws dealing with competitive practices.
Malaysia needed to determine its primary of focus that is the
producers and suppliers or the consumers. The US model protected
the producers whilst the EU model shielded the consumers. The US
model was more interested in economic and econometric results
while the EU model emphasized social and regional development
and the political consequences as well. The EU also protect the
rights of small businesses more vigorously than the American
legislation and, the EU to some extent, sacrifices intellectual
property rights in the name of fairness and the free movement of
goods and services. In the case of Malaysia, it seemed that
Malaysia was more inclined to the EU than the American models.
The purpose of this study is to illustrate competition laws
deemed to secure a competitive marketplace and thus protect the
consumers from unfair, anti-competitive practices. Yet,
competition laws had to embody the inherent conflicts in
emerging markets such as those in Malaysia, as well as a system
of conflict resolution.
Key words: Competition law, anti-competitive practices,
market economy and anti-trust law. |
