The Philippine Competition Commission issued rules to streamline its merger review process for joint ventures formed for solicited private-public partnership projects.
It issued Memorandum Circular No. 19-001 that details the procedure in securing a certificate of project exemption, effectively allowing prospective bidders to meet both the requirements of the Philippine Competition Act and the Build-Operate-Transfer Law in the streamlined process.
“This track enables the PCC to inject the necessary competition safeguards early on and pave the way for faster roll-out of these priority infrastructure projects. The measure embodies efficiency of processes by the implementing agency, the PPP Center and the PCC while remaining steadfast to our respective mandates,” said PCC chairman Arsenio Balisacan.
Under the circular, agencies may seek exemption from compulsory notification on behalf of their solicited project’s prospective bidders by filing an application for a certificate of project exemption from the PCC.