1. Unfair Trade Practices – Conceptualisation, Significance and Regional Perspectives Comments Cassey Lee

2. Concept and Meaning Deconstructing “Unfair trade practices” Parties: B2B, B2C, C2C Unfair: – Motivation: Fraud, deception, confusing consumers Exercise market power to increase profit – Source: Information asymmetry Bargaining power Market power – Unfair: Consequence / outcome – price, contract terms (distribution of surplus)  Behavior Process  Structure

3. Competition Policy & Consumer Protection Competition Policy/Law Consumer Protection ObjectiveConsumer welfare (competition) Consumer welfare TransactionsB2B, B2CB2C, C2C (?) Demand / SupplySupply Side (Seller) Demand Side (Buyer) Motivation / SourceMarket PowerFraud, Deception, Confusion Market CharacteristicsConcentration Market Power Information Asymmetry Bounded rationality LegalPer-se, rule of reasonPer-se? (regulation) Enforcement/ResolutionMarket structure Conduct Courts Conduct Information Regulation?

4. Situating Unfair Trade Practices “Unfair Trade” is a general term: – Depends on national legislation – Can mean competition policy-law or consumer protection Competition law & consumer protection – complementarities as well as potential conflicts  need separate the two (law, enforcement agencies) “Unfair trade” as residual / catch all  problematic even as a ‘temporary solution’ due to path dependence, focus, consumer confusion etc. Sectoral / specific: IP, e-commerce, distributive trade? Enforcement challenges may also differ

5. ASEAN Uneven progress in competition law implementation and enforcement Country differences in legislation, institutions, political economy Most countries have separate consumer protection laws / consumer policy Raises interesting issues about: – whether competition agencies should take on residual unfair trade practices – If so, how? If not, how to deal with such practices? – whether countries should/can harmonize