Merger control in Asia

JunHe LLP, Beijing, China; Co-Chair, Antitrust Section Janet Hui is a partner at JunHe LLP and is based in Beijing. She primarily specializes in antitrust, cross-border M&A, FDI and general corporate matters. Janet has been recognized as a Band 1 Ranked Lawyer by Chambers and Partners (Asia-Pacific 2012-2022), Leading Lawyer and Recommended Lawyer by The Legal 500 (2012-2022), Highly Regarded Lawyer by IFLR1000 (2017-2022), and Thought Leader- Global Elite by Who’s Who Legal (2017-2022) in antitrust matters. Janet is the Co-Chair of IBA Antitrust Committee, 2023 - 2024. Janet has more than 30 years’ experience in providing legal services to clients in different industries, particularly in areas such as telecommunications and media, hotels and real estate, aviation, automobile, semiconductor, home appliance, pharmaceutical, medical instrument, food and beverage, etc.

Natalie is one of the industry’s leading competition and regulatory lawyers and has worked on a wide range of antitrust, merger control and regulatory matters involving Hong Kong, EU and UK competition law. Natalie advises extensively in relation to cross-border M&A with a particular focus on China and APAC. She regularly coordinates merger control and foreign direct investment notifications on complex global transactions, including those requiring remedies across different jurisdictions, and provides strategic advice to clients on timing, sequencing and, where relevant, substance of remedies proposals. Her recent clients include BHP Billiton, Booking.com, Dowlais plc, Elanco Animal Health, Google, HKBN, INEOS, Meituan (KeeTa), Meta, OOCL, Richemont, Royal Dutch Shell, S.F. Holding, Standard Chartered Bank, Swire Beverages, Tencent. Natalie also advises extensively on the Hong Kong competition legislation. She has worked on a number of the ‘firsts’, including representing the liner shipping and banking industries on their respective exemption applications (and subsequent renewal processes) to the Competition Commission, Booking.com in the first case involving commitments, Harilela Hotels Limited on one of the first cooperation cases and Toppan Edge on the first case to be fully resolved under the Cooperation Policy, as well as various other investigations. Natalie is the Chairperson of the Competition Law Committee of the Law Society of Hong Kong.

Tsuyoshi (Yoshi) Ikeda, a former official at the JFTC, regularly advises clients on all aspects of antitrust/competition issues, including cartels, merger filings, distribution issues both in domestic and international (multi-jurisdictional) cases. He has been representing multinational companies before the JFTC in international cartels and second phase review merger cases. Yoshi also advises on IP-related antitrust issues such as license and standardization, taking advantage of his experience as an investigator in the IP/IT Taskforce at the JFTC. Yoshi also has a wealth of experience in consumer protection issues such as misleading advertisements. Yoshi frequently serves as a speaker and moderator in international conferences.