To promote efficiency, profit: asset managers urged to support competition standards

The asset managers, in their own interest, should support the enforcement of competition standards, which will promote productive efficiency and profits on their investments. This was stated by Khalid A. Mirza, Chairman Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) in a meeting with the Mutual Funds Association of Pakistan (Mufap) here on Friday.
Najam Ali, Chairman Mufap thanked chairman CCP and his team members for their presence at the event and all CEOs and senior executives of Mufap for attending the event. He said that the event would prove informative for all members present in the meeting.
Khalid A. Mirza, in his address thanked Mufap for hosting this event and for inviting such an eminent group of professionals from the mutual fund industry for an interactive session on the competition regime in Pakistan. He explained that the purpose of this event was to create awareness regarding the aims and objectives of the competition law, its nature and essential contents and to remove any misunderstandings regarding this law and the manner in which the law is being implemented.
He further said that the reason for this meeting with Mufap CEOs was that being asset managers they should have a great interest in governance and implementation of sound competition norms, which comes within the ambit of good governance. Pakistans competition law is set through the Competition Ordinance, 2007. It is a modern piece of legislation embodying principles enshrined in the Treaty of Rome and global best practices.
The agency charged with the responsibility of administering this law ie the CCP, is a quasi-regulatory, quasi-judicial law enforcement body mandated to provide free competition in all spheres of economic activity and to protect the consumer from anti-competitive behaviour.
The commission investigates and penalises anti-competitive behaviour, like for instance abuse of dominance by an enterprise and also collusive behaviour or cartelisation on the part of several enterprises. In addition, most importantly, the commission encourages and promotes sound norms of competition and a culture of competition through advocacy and persuasion ie, it tries to enforce sound norms of competition through means other than law enforcement.
Two presentations were made at the event, firstly a general overview of the law and on the commission, presented by Ms Maleeha Mimi Bangash, Member (Advocacy and Research), and secondly a more focused presentation on certain legal aspects presented by Ms Rahat Kaunain Hassan, Member (Legal).
The objective of these presentations was to provide information and awareness about competition regime in Pakistan and to address concerns and misgivings regarding the same. The presentation of the chairman CCP the two members of the CCP was followed by an active questions and answers session. The Mufap CEOs and senior executives highly appreciated the visit and the very informative presentations made by the chairman and members of the CCP.