Introduction

On 24 December 2025, Singapore’s Ministry of Digital Development and Information (MDDI) and the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) released a public consultation on a draft IMDA Amendment Bill. Open for comment until 21 January 2026, the proposals represent the most significant overhaul of Singapore’s digital communications and media regulatory framework in years. At their core, the amendments strengthen IMDA’s merger control powers, sharpen competition rules, and restructure oversight of an increasingly converged telecoms, media, and digital platform sector. Enactment is expected later in 2026, following Parliamentary tabling.

Key Proposals

Merger Control: A New 30% Trigger

The Bill proposes that any transaction giving a person 30% or more of the voting power in a regulated entity requires prior IMDA approval. This threshold-based trigger updates a framework that has struggled to keep pace with rapid consolidation in Singapore’s digital landscape, where telecoms providers, streaming platforms, content aggregators, and data infrastructure companies increasingly overlap in ownership and function. The 30% threshold aligns the media sector with broader corporate law norms, providing greater transactional certainty. Deals that do not cross the threshold must still be notified to IMDA within a prescribed period.

Pro Forma Transactions: Reducing Friction for Group Restructurings

Internal group restructurings that do not change beneficial voting power will no longer require prior approval, though notification to IMDA remains mandatory. This aligns media sector treatment with existing telecoms rules and reduces compliance friction for large corporate groups — particularly regional conglomerates and listed holding companies — that manage multiple licensed entities across different regulated verticals.

Anti-Competitive Clauses: Proportionate Invalidity

Rather than voiding an entire agreement when only certain provisions are anti-competitive, the Bill proposes to limit invalidity to the offending clauses alone. This proportionality change is commercially significant: it prevents a single non-compliant clause from unravelling an otherwise legitimate contract. For businesses drafting exclusivity arrangements, content licensing agreements, or infrastructure sharing deals, this reduces transactional risk materially.

Structural Separation: Ministerial Oversight

The power to order structural separation of a regulated entity will move from IMDA to the Minister. This safeguard reflects the fact that forced unbundling in converging digital markets carries system-wide consequences — for investment, employment, and cross-sector service provision — that require ministerial-level accountability. The change does not prevent such orders from being made; it elevates the decision to a level commensurate with its significance.

Broader Context

The Bill arrives as Singapore deepens its regulatory engagement with digital platform concentration — a trend mirrored in the EU’s Digital Markets Act, Australia’s digital competition review, and ongoing OECD discussions on platform gatekeeping. For Singapore, the additional impetus is practical: the convergence of telecoms, broadcast, streaming, and data services means that legacy sectoral boundaries no longer reflect commercial realities. The IMDA Amendment Bill is a pragmatic attempt to modernise rules built for a simpler industry structure.

Summary

For telecoms operators, broadcasters, digital platform providers, and media companies holding IMDA licences, the proposed changes require prompt review of shareholder agreements, change-of-control thresholds, and competition compliance policies. Cross-border M&A involving Singapore-licensed entities will face additional regulatory scrutiny under the new framework. The amendments are broadly proportionate and well-designed, but the 30% merger control trigger in particular will alter deal structuring calculus across the sector.