Antitrust Chronicle^® – Year of the Rat: Antitrust in China

Dear Readers,

We are delighted to release our CPI Antitrust Chronicle^® for March 2020, Year of the Rat: Antitrust in China, and present thirteen articles from Chinese enforcement officials, law and economics experts, and practitioners.

This China issue starts with two CPI Talks interviews with the senior officials of the antitrust authorities in China and Hong Kong respectively. The first interview is with Mr. Zhenguo Wu, Director General of the Anti-Monopoly Bureau of the State Administration for Market Regulation (“SAMR”). The other interview is with Brent Snyder, Chief Executive Officer of the Competition Commission of Hong Kong.

Prof. Chenying Zhang provides an in-depth analysis of the current antitrust legal framework in China regarding digital competition, as well as the proposed amendments to the Anti-Monopoly Law (“AML”).

Prof. Wei Han and Yajie Gao further discuss the AML-related developments, and the relationship between the AML and other laws. They have also looked into the coordination between administrative competition authorities and the courts, as well as coordination between the SAMR and other government authorities.

In 2019, the Shanghai Branch of SAMR completed its years-long investigations against Eastman Chemical, which is one of three completed investigations against multinationals that year. Dr. Vanessa Yanhua Zhang and Prof. John Jiong Gong analyze the decision of the Shanghai authority.

In 2019, SAMR approved five high prof