When China's Ministry of Commerce ("MOFCOM")
approved Pfizer's $68 billion acquisition of rival
pharmaceutical company Wyeth in last September, the Chinese
anti-trust authority for the first time applied business
divestiture as a structural remedy in its merger control review.
According to MOFCOM's conditional clearance decision, Pfizer
was required to divest its PRC swine mycoplasmal pneumonia vaccine
business to an approved third party to address anti-competitive
concerns. To satisfy the condition, Pfizer sold its swine vaccine
business in China to Harbin Pharmaceutical Group for approximately
US$50 million in May. There are however concerns that divestiture
has been applied without any official guidance which should have
been put into place to ensure consistency of implementation of
future divestiture in conditional clearance decisions. To address
these concerns, on the 5th of July MOFCOM issued its Tentative
Provisions on the Implementation of Assets or Business
