- General
- September 24, 2018
- 5 minutes read
Grab and Uber fined $9.5 million by Singapore’s anti-trust regulator over “anti-competitive merger”
Grab co-founder/CEO Anthony Tan Grab Ride-sharing firms Grab and Uber have been hit with fines amounting to $9.5 million by…
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| Grab co-founder/CEO Anthony Tan
Grab
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Ride-sharing firms Grab and Uber have been hit with fines amounting to $9.5 million by Singapore’s Competition and Consumer Commission regulatory organization over what it says was an “anti-competitive merger” regarding the combination of both companies’ South East Asian businesses.
The merger completed on the 26th of March was made as part of Uber’s efforts to consolidate intense and expensive competition after heavy investments amounting to $700 million in the region. Uber combined with Grab’s SE Asian operations in exchange for a 27.5% stake in the company worth billions of dollars.
The CCCS said that both firms violated the country’s Competition Act stating of it leading to a between 10 percent and 15 percent increase rate for passenger fares.
“Potential competitors are hampered by exclusivities and cannot scale to compete effectively against Grab,” the commission said in a statement.
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| Grab co-founder Tan Hooi Ling
Grab
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As per the regulator, despite recent entries by smaller players into the ride-hailing market, Grab currently commands around an 80% share of the region’s market.
Grab also released a statement on Sunday after this jurisdiction stating that it had been compliant with the CCCS during investigations.
“Today we are glad that the CCCS has completed its investigations on the Grab-Uber transaction and did not require the transaction to be unwound,” The company said in a statement. “Grab completed the Transaction within its legal rights, and still maintains we did not intentionally or negligently breach competition laws.”
The ride-hailing firm also stated of its earlier view terming the CCCS as being “narrow” in its approach to defining competition.
“However, it is unfortunate that the CCCS is taking a very narrow market definition in arriving at its conclusion that the Transaction has led to a substantial lessening of competition,” Grab said. “Commuters are free to choose between street-hail taxis and private hire cars, and it is a fact that private-hire car drivers’ incomes are directly impacted by intense competition with street-hail taxis.”
