On 10 February 2023, by Decree 03/2023/ND-CP, the Government established the long-awaited Vietnam Competition Commission ("VCC"). This comes nearly five years after the Law on Competition No. 23/2018/QH14 was passed, which envisaged the establishment of this body.
VCC is an agency under the Ministry of Industry and Trade. It will be primarily responsible for, among others, overseeing economic concentrations (merger filings), handling competition proceedings, and handling and settling competition cases.
The establishment of VCC is a major milestone towards the Government's efforts to enforce competition laws. To date, the absence of VCC has resulted in very limited enforcement actions being taken against competition law violations.
Decree 03/2023/ND-CP came into effect from 1 April 2023.
