- General
- July 5, 2018
- 4 minutes read
Singapore’s Competition watchdog says Uber-Grab deal has reduced competition and led to increased prices with Several risks being faced
Uber A recent merger which involved the combination of Uber’s South East Asian operations with major competitor Grab which saw…
Uber
A recent merger which involved the combination of Uber’s South East Asian operations with major competitor Grab which saw Uber get 27.5% of the combined business has now been scrutinized by The Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) which says that the deal has been found to be in violation of competition laws as the combined business control the lion market share in the region which the competition watchdog has said led to increased prices for consumers with not a lot of other options and has moved to propose fines on Uber with CCCS also stating that the deal may have to be undone.
The competition watchdog has also stated that it will be seeking public feedback on several measures to be made in handling competition concerns concerning the merger.
The investigation concerning this started March this year after the deal was announced with the Singaporean side initially issuing several measures of which included a ruling against the taking over of Uber’s swath of consumer trip history and other forms of sensitive data in order to increase market share.
With the scrutiny going on, Grab has decided to appeal against this decision with the company dis-agreeing with the case brought by the competition watchdog concerning its merger with Uber’s SE Asian operations.
The CCCS is proposing several measures which include Grab ending its exclusivity program with several taxi firms which entails the taxi firms involved only receiving bookings from Grab and not other ride-hailing firms and is also suggesting the sale of Grab’s car rental subsidiary in Singapore in order to create more room for competition.
Grab has argued that the CCCS’s stated case defines competition too narrowly stating that The organization has not taken into account the increased and dynamic competition which has been going on in the past few months with the rise of several ride-hailing startups in the South East Asian region.
We would now get to see how these case would be settled by both parties as Uber makes major moves to deepen its operations which include a reported interest with merging it’s Middle East operations with ride-hailing unicorn Careem Networks.
Grab also has been on an expansion spree with the company just last month raising a huge $1 Billion from Toyota coming with a $10 Billion valuation for the company which has raised over $4 Billion in equity financing.
