The introduction in April by the Ministry of Commerce’s (MOFCOM’s) anti-monopoly bureau of a new procedure for ‘simple cases’ has cut the time needed by nearly a half. Mark Jephcott, head of the Hong Kong-based anti-trust team at Herbert Smith Freehills, said: ‘Our experience, and we are hearing from others, is that MOFCOM are getting much better at transparency and at getting on with it. We did a deal recently from start to finish in three months – that was phenomenal, and would not have been possible a year ago.’ Source: Asian Legal Business