Competition body restores choice to ridehailing market after Grab-Uber deal
Add BT as a preferred sourceTHERE may be questions about whether enough was done to level the ride-hailing playing field, but one thing that the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) got right in the Grab-Uber merger was to put in place incentives to restore market choice.
The CCCS rightly found that the Grab-Uber deal, which led Uber to exit Singapore, created a dominant player in Grab. Grab has complained that the Commission's determination of its 80 per cent market share did not include taxi operators, but the exclusion is reasonable because the market that is directly affected by the merger is in private-hire ridehailing. That is where remedies are needed.
There is also little surprise that the Commission allowed the merger to remain in place. It would have made no sense to force Uber to come back to Singapore to compete, and so the best way forward is to impose measures that limit Grab's ability to unfairly stack the market in its favour.
