The Malaysia Competition Commission (“
MyCC”) issued its
finding of infringement decision dated 11 December 2023 (“
Decision”) against five enterprises namely, Gold Coin Feedmills (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd (“
Gold Coin”), Dindings Poultry Development Centre Sdn Bhd (“
Dindings”), FFM Berhad (“
FFM”), Leong Hup Feedmills (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd (“
Leong Hup”) and PK Agro-Industrial Products (M) Sdn Bhd (“
PK Agro”) (individually a “
Party” and collectively the “
Parties”), for infringing section 4(1) read in conjunction with section 4(2)(a) and 4(3) of the Competition Act 2010 by entering into anti-competitive agreements and/ or concerted practices which have the object to prevent, restrict and distort competition in the market for the supply of poultry feed (containing soybean and maize as the main ingredients) between the early 2020 and mid-2022.
In essence, the MyCC found that the Parties had entered into a cartel arrangement to fix the quantum of increase and decrease of poultry feed prices. The evidence relied on by the MyCC in coming to the Decision included documentation such as minutes of meetings of the Malaysian Feedmillers Association (to which each of the Party was a member), a series of price announcements of the Parties, personal notes, internal communications between the Parties as well as statements made by the representatives of the Parties during the investigation process.
Following from its finding of an infringement by all the Parties, the MyCC imposed financial penalties on each of the Parties ranging from RM42,689,583.64 to RM157,470,027.02, which amounted to an aggregate sum of RM415,495,696.49, for infringing the section 4 prohibition of the Competition Act 2010. Notably, this marks the highest aggregate financial penalty imposed by the MyCC to date.
In addition, the MyCC issued the following directions to be adhered to by the Parties: