Qantas is Australia’s largest domestic and international airline. Qantas is also the holding company of a number of subsidiaries including Jetstar Airways Pty Limited (‘Jetstar’). Jetstar conducts Australian domestic and international airline operations.
Orangestar is the holding company of two Singapore value based airline subsidiaries, Jetstar Asia and Valuair. Qantas owns approximately 44.5% of Orangestar. The other major shareholder in Orangestar is Temasek Holdings (Private) Limited.
Given Qantas’ substantial economic interest and material management role in Orangestar, Qantas and Orangestar (together ‘the Applicants’) have entered into a Co-Operation Agreement dated 21 April 2006 (‘Co-Operation Agreement’) in order to better co-ordinate their activities and the activities of their subsidiaries, including network and scheduling decisions, sales and marketing initiatives and pricing and inventory decisions.
The Applicants and their subsidiaries are part of a Single Economic Entity and the Co-Operation Agreement results in significant Net Economic Benefit to Singapore. As such, the Applicants have applied for a Decision from the CCS that the Co-Operation Agreement does not infringe the section 34 prohibition.
There are no goods involved. The services involve passenger air services, which are the principal focus of the Application. The Agreement also relates to air freight services and sale of air travel services, but there are no appreciable effects in those markets.
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