The Fair Trade Commission says it will investigate the ASE Group’s plan to purchase SPIL.
ASE or the Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc. is Taiwan’s biggest IC packaging and testing provider. SPIL or Siliconware Precision Industries Co., Ltd is the second biggest IC firm of that kind in Taiwan.
While ASE has already spent more than NT$30 billion (US$1 billion) to acquire a 25% stake in SPIL, it is willing to spend NT$160 billion (US$5.3 billion) to purchase SPIL. That would be one of the largest acquisitions in Taiwan’s semiconductor industry in recent years.
Fair Trade Commission Vice Chairperson Chiu Yung-ho said on Tuesday that the government will look into the matter as it could violate Taiwan’s competition law.
“The concept of fairness is used in the Fair Trade Act. Anti-trust is a term used by the international community. From our point of view, we will examine whether the overall economic benefits are bigger than the disbenefits of a restrictive economy. That’s because restrictive competition will lead to disbenefits and we want to examine which one of the two is bigger,” said Chiu.
If the acquisition were to occur, ASE would have 80% of the global market.