FAQ of New Trend on Antitrust Enforcement

1.      Q: Which authority is guiding the new trend?

A: The State Administration for Industry and Commerce (“SAIC“) announced on July 29th that it has launched a publication platform for antitrust enforcement decisions and it also plans to promulgate the guideline and the regulation concerning IP-related antitrust issues.

2.      Q: What’s the latest enforcement action that SAIC took to anti-monopoly?

A: SAIC has accepted 24 cases in total since the Anti-Monopoly Law (“AML“) became effective five years ago, among which 23 cases were accepted by provincial Administrations for Industry and Commerce under the authorization of SAIC, and 1 case accepted by the State-level SAIC. Of the 23 cases, 12 are concluded and published on SAIC’s website. All of the closed cases involve monopoly agreements in various provinces, such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Chongqing, Henan, Hunan, Yunnan, Heilongjiang, Guangdong, and Hubei, and cover a broad range of industries, including insurance, construction materials, liquefied petroleum gas, tourism etc.

3.      Q: What’s the new plan on IP-related antitrust issue?

A: The SAIC is promulgating the Guideline of Antimonopoly Law Enforcement in Intellectual Property Area and the Regulation of the Administration for Industry and Commerce on Prohibition against Abuse of intellectual Property to Restrict and Exclude Competition. It has been working on it for several years, however as there may be some difficulties in getting the other two Chinese antitrust enforcement agencies, i.e., the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Commerce, aligned, the plan was delayed. Since the new measures SAIC announced to take we have reason to expect the departmental regulation to be published sooner.

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