The Proposed Hong Kong Competition Regime

一場超乎意外之好的演講！

Monday 23 March 2009
CPD Lecture
The Proposed Hong Kong Competition Regime
Speaker: Hans Mahncke, City University Hong Kong
Time: 5.30 -6.30pm
Venue: Keeton Room, UCL Laws
http://hk-competition.eventbrite.com/

重點整理如下：

1. No General Competition Law in HK

2. 2007 Cross-sector address

3. Linear approach on the development of CP:
1440 Common Law Roots
1890 Sherman Act (USA)
1948 Restrictive Practice (UK)
1957 Article 81 & 82 (EU)
1947 Japan Competition Regime (forced by the US)
2004 Singapore Competition Regime (forced by the US)
2008 Anti-monopoly Act (China)

-> Three common salience: anti-competition, abuse of dominance, merger control

4. Competition regime does not always have positive criticisms. e.g. Alan Greenspan, Economic nationalism case in the PRC.

5. Business Environment in HK

- supposed: free-port, free competition on service
- but, 'Parallelism of Action' is a big problem. e.g. petroleum, supermarket
- natural monopolies/champions
- NO free-hold land leads to price-setting: government holds lands with only 50 yrs lease.
- therefore, auction on land-lease becomes the essential obstacle to real competition.
- this is a colonial legacy, whilst the government has huge profits from this land auction - Land Premium System.

6. The proposed HK Competition Law

- NO merger control and NO acquisition rules!
- only on 'collusion' and 'dominance'
- rediculous exemptions to (1) Government itself, (2) Chief Executive's special right to 'undo' judgements, (3) Maximum penalty < 1 Million pounds.

7. Conclusion:

- proposed law is NOT viable, on hold now.
- Competition regime CANNOT work in HK, due to land system and lack of accountability, democracy.

牛肉湯

好喝！

行萬里路

記得古代一里=100公尺？

而且有一台很省油的車車！還有便宜的油錢！

布達佩斯的市容

恩！看來今天是卯起來趕Blogging進度。

布達佩斯的晚冬有個十分奇特的現象。

整個布達佩斯市區的角落，不，應該說路中央，都堆滿著廢棄的家具類物品，諸如解體的櫃子，使用超過三十年的生銹洗手台等，在我們這些資本主義教育下的有色眼鏡中，是無法理解這些看似毫無價值的垃圾，為什麼旁邊都存在著一些老先生甚至一家人在旁邊虎視眈眈的顧著，當你一走近這堆垃圾的時候，他們就會從暗地裡出現（就像是Sin City一樣），以為你對這堆資源回收廢棄物有興趣。事實上，我的確親眼看到有人從這堆砂礫中找到了鑽石（！），不是，是找到了一張可用的椅子帶走，前提當然是在給這些顧著廢棄物的人們一些「看顧費用」之後才順利帶走。

一方面看到這現象很心疼那些失業或流離失所的民眾以「看顧」為生，一方面也很好奇這是一個2009初春的偶然，還是每年冬天固定發生的現象。而匈牙利政府或布達佩斯市政府，在這事件上，又有什麼因應之道嗎？

婚姻

真的是愛情還有交往的殺手嗎？

一位在法國的朋友，
因為她男友說：Marriage is an anxiety.
所以，分手了。

世事難料，今天另法國朋友來倫敦出差，一起吃飯聊天，才知道原來他們居然分手了！

又是個大吃一驚呀。

看來去年九月因為英法海底隧道失火沒去成的訂婚Party已經成為絕響了。

彎彎已經紅到法語世界了！

今天無意間看到這張圖！
大驚！這不是台灣出產的彎彎系列嗎？
又是一個台灣之光啊！