On 20 December 2024, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) officially released the final version of its Guidelines on the Review of Horizontal Mergers (the “Guidelines”), which came into effect on the same day. The Guidelines provide a comprehensive framework of the key regulatory considerations under China’s merger control regime, setting out potential competition law concerns arising from M&A transactions between actual or potential competitors, and outlining possible arguments to mitigate these concerns.

The article aims to provide an overview of Hong Kong’s merger control regime, which is voluntary in nature and – substantively speaking – only applies to mergers involving a telecommunications carrier licensee, as well as other strategic considerations at early stages of transactions.

This piece was originally published on Practical Law and is republished with the permission of the publishers.
The principal competition legislation in Hong Kong is the Competition Ordinance (Cap 619) which came into full effect on 14 December 2015. The Competition Ordinance prohibits businesses (undertakings) from entering into agreements with other undertakings that prevent, restrict or distort competition in Hong Kong. It also prohibits businesses with a significant degree of market power from abusing their market power in a way which prevents, restricts or distorts competition in Hong Kong.