RM415 Million For Fixing The Price Of Chicken Feed: How Malaysia Actually Punishes Cartels

In September 2023, a group of childcare centre operators in Kelantan held an association meeting and agreed on floor prices for taska fees. Then they announced it on the association's Facebook page — unanimously agreed, effective 2024.

On 29 December 2025, MyCC issued a proposed decision against 31 of them for price fixing.

That is roughly how most Malaysian businesses get caught. Not through a secret meeting in a hotel basement, but through a WhatsApp group, a memo to members, or a public post explaining to everyone that the industry has agreed to stop undercutting each other.

The bigger number is the one nobody argued their way out of. In December 2023 MyCC fined five poultry feed millers a total of RM415.5 million for coordinating chicken feed price increases between January 2020 and June 2022 — the largest competition penalty in Malaysian history. Four of them appealed. On 11 February 2026, the Competition Appeal Tribunal dismissed every appeal, unanimously. Feed is the single largest cost in producing a chicken, so this was never really about feed millers. It was about the price of ayam at your pasar.

1. The law only bans two things, and one of them isn't what you think

Section 4 covers agreements between enterprises. Section 10 covers what a dominant enterprise does on its own. That's the whole architecture.

Under section 4, some agreements are treated as illegal by their very object — meaning MyCC doesn't have to prove any actual harm happened. These are: fixing prices, sharing markets or sources of supply, limiting output or technical development, and bid rigging. Once MyCC shows you agreed, you've lost. "We never actually followed the agreement" is not a defence to having made it.

Everything else under section 4 requires MyCC to prove the agreement significantly prevents, restricts or distorts competition — which is a real fight, with economics and market definition.

2. Being a monopoly is not illegal in Malaysia

This is the single most common misunderstanding, and it's baked into how people talk about "monopoly" companies here.

Section 10 does not prohibit being dominant. It prohibits abusing a dominant position. You can have 80% of a market entirely lawfully, if you got there by being better or cheaper. What you cannot do is use that position to squeeze out rivals or exploit customers who have nowhere else to go.

MyCC's best-known abuse-of-dominance case is against Dagang Net Technologies, the operator of the national trade facilitation portal — a business that was dominant precisely because it ran essential national infrastructure. Dominance was the starting point of the case, not the offence.

There is also no law in Malaysia against simply charging a high price, and this trips people up constantly. Price gouging and profiteering are a completely different regime — the Price Control and Anti-Profiteering Act 2011, enforced by KPDN, not MyCC. If your kedai runcit doubled the price of eggs before Raya, that is a KPDN complaint, not a competition complaint.

3. Trade associations are a trap

The Kelantan taska case is the clearest warning in recent Malaysian enforcement, because the operators clearly did not think they were doing anything criminal. They held a meeting. They circulated a memo. They posted it publicly.

An association meeting is a room full of competitors. A "recommended price list", a "minimum rate schedule", an agreed "no discount" policy, an agreed date to raise fees — these are cartel agreements wearing a persatuan letterhead. It makes no difference that the intention was to stop members destroying each other on price, which is usually the honest motive.

The Competition (Amendment) Bill 2026 makes this worse for associations, not better. The Minister, Datuk Armizan Mohd Ali, said the amendments broaden the Act from "commercial activity" to "any economic activity" specifically so MyCC has clear authority to investigate industry associations whose decisions amount to price fixing, market sharing or output restriction.

4. Bid rigging is MyCC's top priority, and the numbers are getting serious

If you tender for government work, this is the section that matters. MyCC has said repeatedly that bid rigging is its number one enforcement focus, and the case flow backs that up.

Note the pattern in the February 2025 case: the companies coordinated bids by email and in meetings, then after the tender was awarded they carved the work up between themselves through subcontracts. Subcontracting to your "losing" competitor after winning is one of the loudest signals MyCC looks for.

5. How big can the fine get

Up to 10% of worldwide turnover over the whole period of the infringement. Not annual turnover. Not Malaysian turnover. This is harsher than many other countries, where fines are capped at turnover for a fixed number of years.

There is no minimum, and penalties have ranged from tens of thousands of ringgit to hundreds of millions. "Enterprise" can also stretch upward to a parent company with decisive influence over the subsidiary that actually did it — which is why the chicken feed case landed on Bursa-listed groups, not just their feedmill subsidiaries.

Cartel conduct itself is not a crime in Malaysia — it's civil. But obstructing a MyCC investigation is criminal, and the 2026 Bill adds a new offence for attempting to destroy, conceal, mutilate or alter records and data to obstruct an investigation.

There is a way down. The existing leniency regime allows a reduction of up to 100% — full immunity — for the first enterprise to come forward and admit a cartel. The 2026 Bill adds a settlement mechanism under a new section 38A giving up to a 40% reduction for admitting liability early, plus cash rewards for whistleblowers under a new section 64B.

6. What MyCC cannot touch

Be realistic about the gaps, because they are large.

• No general merger control. Malaysia is unusual in ASEAN here. Two companies can merge into a near-monopoly and MyCC has no power to review it under the Competition Act. Sector regulators can — MCMC for communications and broadcasting, and the aviation regime — but that's it.
• Sector carve-outs. Activities regulated under the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, the Energy Commission Act 2001 and the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia Act 2017 have sat outside the Act; the 2026 amendments update that exempt list.
• Nothing before 1 January 2012. Complaints can only be lodged about conduct after the Act came into force.
• Not everything is a "market" problem. Bad service, an unfair contract, a refused refund — these are consumer protection or contract issues, not competition ones.

MyCC also loses cases. Its proposed RM86 million penalty against Grab over conduct towards drivers was quashed by the High Court, and on 19 March 2025 the Court of Appeal upheld that quashing. A proposed decision is not a finding, and a finding is not the end of the road.

7. What actually changed in July 2026

The Competition (Amendment) Bill 2026 and the Competition Commission (Amendment) Bill 2026 are the biggest overhaul since the Act came into force. Reports differ slightly on the exact date of final passage in the Dewan Rakyat — The Star and The Edge report 6 July 2026 after the committee stage, following a policy-stage vote on 2 July; some coverage says 7 July. The Bills went to the Dewan Negara from its meeting starting 20 July 2026.

As at 23 July 2026 these amendments are not yet in force. They still need Senate passage, Royal Assent and gazetting, and a commencement date. Check before relying on any of it.

What's in them:

• Scope widened from "commercial activity" to any economic activity
• Stronger information-gathering powers in investigations and market reviews
• New settlement mechanism (s.38A) — up to 40% penalty reduction for early admission
• Whistleblower protection and cash rewards (s.64A/64B), because the Whistleblower Protection Act 2010 only covers criminal and disciplinary misconduct, not civil competition matters
• New criminal offence for destroying or altering records to obstruct MyCC
• Appeals from the Competition Appeal Tribunal to the High Court on questions of law and on the amount of penalty — previously CAT decisions were final
• The Commission formally renamed the Malaysia Competition Commission

Merger control was left out. Armizan told the Dewan Rakyat that a centralised merger control framework would come later, within the 13th Malaysia Plan period (2026–2030), and that the priority now was MyCC's enforcement capacity.

8. Can you sue a cartel yourself? Genuinely unsettled

Section 64 gives anyone who suffers loss or damage directly from an infringement a right to sue the enterprises involved — and expressly says it doesn't matter whether you dealt with them directly or indirectly. In theory, a chicken seller squeezed by inflated feed costs could sue.

In practice, the courts are split on a threshold question, and this is not resolved.

• In the GTSM v GrabCar case (2021/2022), the High Court held that you can only bring a section 64 action after MyCC has made a finding of infringement — a "follow-on" claim only.
• In Thirteen Wings Sdn Bhd & Ors v Heineken Malaysia Bhd, decided 24 November 2025, the High Court went the other way. The absence of a MyCC finding is "a legally neutral fact"; regulatory silence does not bar a civil suit. The plaintiffs — a group of restaurant and bar operators — could proceed without MyCC having decided anything.

That decision is under appeal. Until the Court of Appeal rules, a Malaysian lawyer cannot tell you with confidence whether you need a MyCC decision first. Anyone who tells you it's settled either way is overstating it.

What to actually do

If you're a consumer or a small business that's been hurt:

• Download the Complaint Form from mycc.gov.my and email it to complaints@mycc.gov.my, or call 03-7803 2611. Post and fax also work.
• Include: who you are, who you're complaining about, what specifically they did, and any documents — screenshots of group chats, price circulars, association memos, tender documents.
• Understand what you're getting. MyCC enforces the law in the public interest; it does not recover money for you. A finding of infringement may open the door to a section 64 claim, but that's a separate case you fund yourself.
• Wrong door check: overcharging or profiteering → KPDN. Telco or broadcasting conduct → MCMC. Poor product or service → Tribunal for Consumer Claims.

If you run a business:

• Never discuss prices, margins, discounts, customer allocation, territories or bidding intentions with a competitor. Not in a WhatsApp group, not at a golf day, not "just informally".
• Leave the meeting if it goes there, and make sure your objection is recorded. Silent attendance is treated as participation.
• Bidding: prepare your bid independently. Don't submit a cover bid to help someone else win. Don't agree in advance to subcontract to a losing bidder.
• If you're already in one, leniency is a race. The first to come forward can get up to 100% immunity. The second gets far less.

If you sit on a trade association committee:

• No recommended prices, minimum fee schedules, standard discount policies, or agreed fee increase dates. This is the highest-risk room you'll sit in all year.
• Circulate an agenda, keep minutes, and shut down pricing discussion on the record.
• Never publish a members' pricing decision. The Kelantan operators announced theirs on Facebook.