Dear Readers,
We are delighted to release our CPI Antitrust Chronicle® for March 2022, Year of the Tiger: Antitrust in China. This collection of nine excellent articles starts with a detailed analysis from Research Fellow at the Supreme People’s Court of China Zhu Li and finishes by a visionary policy review from esteemed legal scholar Professor Yong Huang. Seven insightful pieces by top practitioners in leading global and Chinese antitrust law firms provide developments and highlights of key matters in legislation, merger review, antitrust investigation, and litigation on standard essential patents. This chronicle covers a wide range of important sectors and hot topics including digital platforms, electronic vehicles, data privacy, just to name a few. Here’s a snippet of each article:
Zhu Li, a Research Fellow at the Supreme Court of China, provides an in-depth analysis of minimum resale price maintenance (“RPM”) by comparing the legal framework taken by authorities in Chinese cases against US and Europe. He suggests that a structured rule of reason analysis could be a superior approach, yet it needs to show either (i) market power of a supplier or its dealer or (ii) a consumer price increase plus a quantity decrease as a condition for a presumptive antitrust violation of RPM.
China recently adopted a comprehensive data protection law, the Personal Information Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China (“PIPL”). In their article, Sébastien Evrard, Felicia Chen, and Hayley Smith thoroughly discuss the complex interplay between the PIPL and China’s Anti-Monopoly Law (“AML”), particularly in abuses of dominance cases involving personal data.
Ma Chen and Guo Jiahao provide an overview of China’s anti-monopoly investigations in 2021 in three areas: monopolistic agreements, abuse of dominance, and failure to report notifiable concentrations and highlight new developments and impact on anti-monopoly regulations in China.
Against a backdrop of a large-scale battery electric vehicle launch in China, Wenting Ge and Hazel Yin carefully examine the existing Chinese antitrust regulation and enforcement activities in the auto sector and their implications for the market.
Reviewing three high-profile investigations against Alibaba Group, Sherpa’s, and Meituan that were fined millions to billions of dollars by the State Administration of Market Regulation (“SAMR”), Wu Peng, Long Rui, and Dong Ke explore the finding of market dominance of online platforms.
Peter Wang and Yizhe Zhang analyze SAMR’s merger review in the past four years and find new trends in and unique characteristics of its approach that could have profound implications for future complex global transactions.
The Chinese antitrust authorities and courts have become increasingly active in the past decade in cases involving standards and Standard-Essential Patents (“SEPs”). Alexandra Pu Yang and Fan Guo compare antitrust authorities’ positions regarding SEP abuses in China, the U.S., and the EU and reveal China-specific causes of actions in FRAND violations.
Guanbin Xie, Shan Jiao, and Qing Ying review the OPPO v. Sharp ruling by the Supreme People’s Court of China (“SPC”) where the SPC for the first time opined on whether Chinese courts have jurisdiction over certain SEP royalty cases and whether it is appropriate for them to rule on global FRAND rates . They shed light on why disputes regarding the jurisdictions over SEP royalty cases arise and how the OPPO v. Sharp ruling fits in.
As the digital economy is entering the era of the “metaverse”, Yong Huang , a law professor and director of the Competition Law Center at the University of International Business and Economics, introduces the characteristics of China’s digital economy regulation and envisages the future of policies regarding industrial development and competition of the digital economy.
We would like to thank our contributors for their efforts and dedication to our March 2022 CPI Antitrust Chronicle, and hope you enjoy reading this special China issue.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Xiaoru Wang, Ph.D.
Kun Huang, Ph.D.
* CPI thanks Compass Lexecon for their sponsorship of this issue of the CPI Antitrust Chronicle. Sponsoring an issue of the Chronicle entails the suggestion of a specific topic or theme for discussion in a given publication. CPI determines whether the suggestion merits a dedicated conversation, as is the case with the current issue of the Chronicle, and takes steps to ensure that the viewpoints relevant to a balanced debate are invited to participate.
