MyCC said the High Court, on Friday, upheld the commission’s 2021 findings that Dagang Net had broken competition laws.

“The court also affirmed the Competition Appeal Tribunal’s 2023 decision, which previously dismissed Dagang Net’s appeal. The High Court further ordered Dagang Net to pay RM20,000 in costs.

“This decision reinforces the credibility of MyCC’s enforcement actions,” Bernama reported the commission as saying in a statement.

MyCC had imposed a financial penalty of RM10.3 million on Dagang Net for the offence committed between October 2015 and November 2017.

Dagang Net then appealed to the tribunal, which fully upheld MyCC’s findings and penalty, prompting the company to file an application for a judicial review in the High Court challenging the tribunal’s decision.

MyCC said the case stemmed from an investigation into Dagang Net’s conduct as the sole government-appointed provider of online trade facilitation services under the National Single Window (NSW), a federal initiative aimed at implementing a centralised electronic trade platform.

“Given its monopolistic position, Dagang Net was found to have abused its dominant market position in contravention of Section 10(1) of the Competition Act 2010.

“The abuse involved the imposition of exclusivity clauses on software suppliers within the NSW ecosystem, restricting their ability to collaborate with other parties involved in the UCustoms system and thereby restricting overall competition in the relevant market,” it said.