Indonesia Competition Commission (ICC) wrote to the Ministry of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) to obtain further information on the existence of the medical device mafia in Indonesia especially in delving deeply into if there is a potential cartel being perpetrated by business actors in the field of health to arrange the production and supply of medical devices in Indonesia. If the existences of cartel or other infringements in such medical devices are indeed proven, then ICC will impose maximum sanctions on businesses taking advantage of earning significant profits during this COVID-19 national disaster emergency.   

The Minister of SOEs in the last few years underscored the existence of the alleged mafia practices of medical devices spurring in Indonesia to further choose importing medical devices rather than producing them domestically. This has been indicated by the high import of Indonesia for these medical devices, one of which is ventilator. The utterance on the medical device Mafia constitutes a form of behavior in violation of the Law on The Prohibition of Monopolistic Practices and Unfair Business Competition. Hence, such information is surely valuable for ICC in carrying out its competition law supervision duties. Cooperation in terms of providing data, information, and evidence constitutes support for ICC in carrying out such task.  

Spokesperson of ICC, Guntur S. Saragih, said that the health sector has become a priority of supervision at ICC since the last few years. Several law enforcement actions have been conducted in this sector. It has been informed that various violations taking place in the health sector include the drug price fixing as well as conspiracy and collusion in the procurement of medical devices and hospital construction.