Competition & Anti- trust
Question:
What is the latest Chinese Regulation regarding Competition & Anti-trust?
Answer:
On 4th May, 2012, the People’s Supreme Court issued the Regulations on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in relation to Trials of Competition & Anti- trust of Civil Disputes arising from Monopolistic Conducts.
Question:
When will the new law become effective in China?
Answer:
This new Judicial Interpretations of Anti-trust Law will take effect on 1st June, 2012.
Question:
Who can file the civil anti- trust lawsuit in China?
Answer:
Not only the counterparties to the undertakings, who implement a monopolistic agreement or abuse their market dominant position, but also the purchasers may be harmed directly or indirectly by monopolistic conducts. Article 1 of the Judicial Interpretation provides that the natural person, legal person or other organizations can file a suit for the losses coming from the monopoly and the violation against the Anti-Monopoly law by the contract or the rules of industry associations. Nevertheless, the issue of whether consumers are vested plaintiff qualification is still not very clearly articulated.
Question:
How could the anti-trust suit to be filed?
Answer:
There are two ways of filing the suit in China. In Accordance with Article 2 of the Judicial Interpretation, the plaintiff can file suits directly to the Court and also have the choice to file the lawsuit after antitrust enforcement authorities’ decisions on the determination of the monopoly conducts become effect.
Question:
Who is supposed to provide proof?
Answer:
The Judicial Interpretation distinguishes different types of monopolistic behaviors in provisions on burden of proof.. For specific horizontal monopoly agreements that seriously eliminate or restrict competition, the defendant shall undertake the burden of proof; For the cases of abuse of dominant market position by public enterprises as well as other operators with exclusive business qualification, the Judicial Interpretation has appropriately reduced the burden of proof for a plaintiff in a civil lawsuit.
|
