When the government decided to compel the city’s two supermarket chains to give shoppers discounts in return for tapping deeply into the Employment Support Scheme, the government’s Covid-19 wage subsidy programme, it elicited some mirthless laughs. The city’s two main supermarket chains haven’t been known for their generosity. Rather, it’s their spectacular greed that puts them among the first to come to mind whenever anticompetitive behaviour in Hong Kong is discussed. A global public health crisis could not bring down the behemoth and leviathan of Hong Kong’s corporate greed. Supermarkets are among the few sectors that have thrived during the pandemic, while the rest of the retail industry has been buckling under the weight of Covid-19 with 33 per cent retail sales drop this year. Supermarket sales rose due to people switching from dining out to cooking at home, and fear of shopping at wet markets . And yet, the two supermarket chains received a huge chunk of wage subsidies – about HK$250 million in the first tranche of the scheme and close to HK$350 million for the latest round. Requiring them to give out half of what they receive in just the second tranche of the scheme is better than nothing, but it’s just a drop in the ocean. The food and cash coupons and meal vouchers that will be issued to the needy are the very least that they can do for the months of raking in both profit and government subsidy. And what they have offered in terms of giving discounts to customers is pretty pathetic. Promotions have always been part of their strategies. One of the chains has said that it will freeze prices for more than 300 daily essential items for at least six months – that sounds decent, except that it’s quite easy to simply raise prices before the freeze. In fact, a political party recently tracked the prices of more than 20 daily items sold by the two supermarket chains in the last month and found that prices for items such as rice and instant noodles had been increased before they were discounted. Tracking their prices also supports what consumers had long suspected of the duopoly: that the two supermarket chains are in cahoots, offering consumers identical discounts and similar prices for products. Even in these extraordinarily difficult times, the two are still profiteering at the expense of the suffering masses. And, under the guise of giving to the needy, they seem to be justifying dipping their hands into the public till. Matching prices and faking discounts are exploitative and unethical business practices even during “normal” times, let alone during a pandemic. But good can still come out of this if there is enough political will. The government isn’t in a powerless position as the city has both a Competition Commission and a Consumer Council. If a political party can track prices, the Consumer Council should be able to take up the job. Price fixing is only one of the many anticompetitive practices that the Competition Commission has been set up to fight against. The Consumer Council’s Grocery Market Study in 2013 noted that “there is strong anecdotal evidence indicating that pressure has been exerted by a retailer on suppliers to discipline competitors who threaten the retailer’s market position with rigorous price competition in the market”. These retailers have been using strategies to dominate the market in a way that disadvantages consumers. And they have been getting away with this for far too long. The government can also consider putting in place price controls, regulating price hikes on essentials in times of emergencies and crises. And oh, please spare us any tears over the death of the free market. There would be no need for regulation if there were no abuse. Alice Wu is a political consultant and a former associate director of the Asia Pacific Media Network at UCLA