The incentive to coordinate to increase profits by way of cartel, whether by output restriction or pricing prevails as powerful and common business conduct. Competition law and policy (CPL) restricts business practices and public policies that unnecessarily impede the redeployment of scarce resources from lower and higher valued uses. Cartels are a subset of inter-firm cooperation, which ranges from highly, fluid spot markets with no individual market power to fully integrated enterprise hierarchies. Cartel activity ranges from voluntary, private contractual arrangements among independent enterprises to regulate the market; or state-managed (or owned) cartels or forced cartelization. The application of the Competition Law (CL) in newer regimes like ASEAN are rather new and the application for exclusions are less explored with limited jurisprudence and experience. Exemptions are generally cautioned to be applied strictly because feared sometimes may even lead to an acceptance of hard-core cartel behaviour or abused. The paper examines scope of cartel exemption and leniency applied in advocating anti-cartel conduct in Malaysia compared to Singapore as part of ASEAN Economic Community roadmap Notably, two aspects of cartel discussed will be whether the (1) exclusions and more lenient  approach  are necessary and relevant  in combating anti-cartel; and (2) whether or not a there is a credible  theory to exempt cartel  during crisis  or it dilutes the CL objective? to analyse exemption and exceptions relevance generally and during unprecedented times or crises.