Director

COMPETITION LAW
TELECOMMUNICATIONS, MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY (TMT)

About Chong Kin

Areas of Practice

Chong Kin practices corporate and commercial law with strong emphasis in the specialist areas of TMT law and competition law. He regularly advises on regulatory, licensing, competition and market access issues. Apart from his expertise in preparing “first-of-its-kind” competition legislation, Chong Kin also has broad experience in corporate and commercial transactions including mergers and acquisitions.

Regulatory and Competition Experience

Chong Kin played a key role in the development of sectorial competition regulation in Singapore, in particular, in the telecommunications, media and postal industries.  Since 1999, he has routinely advised the sectorial competition regulators on liberalisation, market access, competition regulation, merger reviews and enforcement issues.  In 2000, he was engaged by the telecoms regulator as the lead Singapore counsel to draft the country’s first competition law framework to facilitate full liberalisation of the industry (the Telecom Competition Code). He was re-appointed in 2004 to revise the Telecom Competition Code and to draft the accompanying Advisory Guidelines. This included the drafting of a merger control framework in the form of the Consolidation review guidelines.

In 2008, Chong Kin was retained – for the tenth (10th) consecutive year – as the telecoms regulator’s Singapore counsel. He is routinely relied upon to advise the telecoms and media regulators on competition, regulatory, licensing, and market access issues, including successfully defending the regulators in various Ministerial appeals. Chong Kin is presently advising the telecoms regulator on competition and regulatory issues concerning infrastructure and open access in relation to the Next Generation National Broadband Network (NGNBN) project.

With regard to the media industry, Chong Kin was appointed to draft the first Media Market Conduct Code 2002, which enables fair market conduct and effective competition in the provision of mass media services in Singapore. To date, Chong Kin continues to advise the media regulator on the implementation and enforcement of this competition code.

In recognition of his competition law expertise, Chong Kin was also engaged by the postal regulator to advise on the liberalisation of the postal industry and assisted in drafting the proposed Postal Competition Code.

When the Singapore Competition Act came into force in 2006, Chong Kin was commissioned by the Competition Commission of Singapore (CCS) to lead a study on the effects of price recommendations by trade and professional association on competition in Singapore.

Thereafter, with the coming into force of merger control regulation under the Singapore Competition Act in July 2007, Chong Kin secured the first-ever successful merger clearance in Singapore – namely, for STM and Intel in respect of their US$3.6 billion proposed worldwide merger. Since then, Chong Kin has worked on three other merger filings before the CCS. In addition, Chong Kin’s transactional experience includes most of the significant telecoms M&As including securing competition law clearance for AT&T/SBC, Sprint/Nexel, Reliance/FLAG, AsiaNetcom/C2C and Connect Holdings/Pacific Internet.

Most recently, Chong Kin led an international consortium that was awarded a prestigious project to study and recommend competition policy and law for implementation in East Asian economies. This project required him to lead a team to conduct extensive interviews of competition authorities, policy-makers and other stakeholders in Asia.

Additional notable competition law experience

Other notable competition law matters handled by Chong Kin include:

• Advising a major industry participant on competition law compliance relating to LNG importation and aggregation in Singapore’s liberalisation of the LNG industry
• Advising one of the world’s most admired airlines on the competition law issues arising from their proposed share acquisition of a Chinese airline company
• Advising one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies on the possible impact of investigations of third party pharmaceutical companies by the CCS
• Advising on Singapore merger filing requirements in respect of a €5.3 billion worldwide acquisition of the business line of a leading food & beverage MNC
• Acting for acquiring parties in securing unconditional merger clearance from the Singapore telecoms regulator in respect of the takeover of Pacific Internet, a NASDAQ-listed telco and regional ISP-services giant
• Lead Singapore counsel in advising an association in the financial industry on its worldwide restructuring exercise which necessitates a filing made to competition authorities
• Assisting various trade associations and multinational companies on instituting competition law compliance programmes
• Lead Singapore counsel in advising and acting for a major trade association in the financial industry on competition law in relation to its worldwide restructuring exercise
• Advising various companies on enforcement issues with respect to competition law investigations

Telecommunications and Technology Experience

Chong Kin’s extensive telecommunications and technology-related experience includes the following:

• Lead Singapore counsel in drafting the Telecom Competition Code 2005, Telecom Consolidation framework and Code guidelines to regulate competition in Singapore’s telecommunications industry
• Lead Singapore counsel in advising and assisting in the review of the Dominant Licensee’s Reference Interconnection Offer
• Advising leading global and local telecommunications and broadcasting operators on corporate, commercial, licensing and regulatory issues. Chong Kin successfully assisted a new entrant to obtain a Facilities-based Operator (FBO) Licence to deploy a regional sub-sea cable system
• Lead Singapore counsel in drafting the licensing, regulatory and auction framework for the allocation of radio frequency spectrums for WBA radio-communications
• Lead Singapore counsel in advising on the liberalisation of the Postal industry in Singapore including drafting of the Postal Competition Code
• Reviewing the merger involving a dominant licensee in the telecommunications and broadcasting industry and dealing with convergence issues
• Presently advising Apple Corp on regulatory compliance and competition law issues with respect o the launch of a highly-anticipated telecoms device in Singapore
• Advising Microsoft on regulatory compliance in respect of the proposed roll-out of several novel products featuring convergence of traditional media with internet communications
• Acting as regional coordinating counsel in the rollout of a presence and branding initiative for a major online search engine. Tasks involve instructing and directing local counsel; drafting template service and distributor agreements and adapting end user software licensing agreements

Media and Entertainment Experience

Chong Kin’s vast experience in media and entertainment-related matters includes:

• Appointed by the media regulator to advise on and draft the Media Market Conduct Code to regulate the media and print industry in Singapore
• Acting for leading media content providers (including an international sports broadcast network) in the following media and entertainment-related agreements
• Broadcast licence agreements – advised client in conferring rights to a media company to broadcast, in a designated territory, an international sporting event via various forms of transmissions or distribution channels. Also advised client in reviewing, drafting and negotiating regional broadcast rights for le Tour de France ’07
• Preparation of Host Venue Agreement for staging sporting event in KL, Malaysia
• Acquisition of licensing rights of a famous musician’s characteristics for use in an international sporting event
• Service agreement – assisted clients in drafting service provider agreements for the construction and set-up of props and various tournament equipment for both indoor and outdoor venues
• Mobile service agreements – advised and assisted client in reviewing and drafting of the collaborative arrangements made with various international football clubs for the rights to exploit mobile content services in the nominated territory of these football clubs
• Manufacturing and Content License Agreement – advised & assisted client in reviewing of a licensing agreement with an established PRC handset manufacturer to manufacture mobile telecommunication handsets and accessories under our client’s brand name
• Advising a leading international media content provider on compliance with local gaming laws in respect of a proposed regional poker (and other card games) tournament
• Advising the largest worldwide broadcasting corporation (in terms of audience numbers) and the leading music-television channel on its regulatory and licensing affairs in Singapore
• Appointed by the media regulator to advise on and draft the Media Market Conduct Code to regulate the media and print industry in Singapore

Corporate and Commercial Experience

Some of the notable corporate transactions which Chong Kin has handled include:

• Acting as the Asia-Pacific co-coordinating counsel for SABIC in a US$11.6 billion worldwide acquisition of the plastics business of GE. Apart from instructing local counsels across Hong Kong, Korea, Australia, Malaysia, Thailand and India, Chong Kin advises on all aspects of the deal, including cross-jurisdictional acquisition of related companies, incorporation and restructuring
• Lead Singapore counsel in advising and acting for a major association in the financial industry in a worldwide restructuring exercise
• Acting in many significant telecommunication mergers and acquisitions in Singapore including AT&T/SBC, Sprint/Nextel, Reliance/FLAG, AsiaNetcom/C2C and Connect Holdings/Pacific Internet
• Advising several MNCs on establishment of presence in Singapore and the accompanying licensing, regulatory and compliance obligations
• Advising leading MNCs on all aspects of corporate, employment, commercial, licensing and regulatory issues