Dear Readers,
We are delighted to release our CPI Antitrust Chronicle for March 2023, Year of the Rabbit: Antitrust in China. This collection of eight excellent articles is contributed by distinguished authors, including a former deputy director general at China’s anti-monopoly agencies, a distinguished scholar who is a pioneer of Competition Law in China, and several top practitioners in leading antitrust law firms and law schools. This Chronicle covers a wide range of hot topics such as the amendment to China’s Anti-Monopoly Law (“AML”), merger remedies, the role of national security review on cross-border M&A transactions, as well as various important sectors including semiconductors, digital platforms, just to name a few.
The following is a snapshot of the articles:
The Chronicle opens with an interview with Qing Li, a Vice President of China’s Society of Economic Reform and a former deputy director general at China’s SAMR and NDRC. It covers several topics, including the amendment of China’s AML, the fair competition review system, the application of economic analysis to antitrust practice in China, and an outlook on the development of competition policy in China.
The second article is contributed by Professor Xiaoye Wang, a prestigious professor who witnessed the birth of China’s AML. It provides an in-depth review of the amendment of the AML in June 2022.
The next several articles discuss the important developments on China’s merger reviews. The article by Andrew Foster and Cindy Lau discusses continued willingness and flexibility of SAMR to accept behavioral remedies, and then compares SAMR with its U.S. and EU counterparts.
The article by John Yong Ren, Christine Zhang, and Schiffer Shi summarizes key procedural developments and competitive concerns in transactions with the conditional approvals in China’s merger review in 2022.The article by Hazel Yin, Haoyang Zhuo and Laurent Bougard assesses what global semiconductor players and investors should expect under the amendment of AML regarding semiconductor transactions.
China’s AML enforcement in the digital economy in the past three years has attracted attention worldwide. The article by Roger Xin Zhang, a researcher at Center for Competition Policy Studies of Shandong University, summarizes the characteristics of the AML enforcement on the concentration of digital platform operators in China.
The article by David Pearl & Bella Solórzano reviews past CFIUS actions that have affected companies with ties to China and details recent and potential future legislation and executive action that may further affect Chinese M&A activity in the United States (and vice versa).
Last but not least, the article by Hao Zhan, Ying Song, and Ruichen Liu analyzes two recent litigations in China, the Transformer Charger and the Hitachi Metals, to provide a better understanding of Chinese courts’ attitudes towards the interaction between antitrust law and intellectual property law.
We would like to thank our contributors for their efforts and dedication to our March 2023 CPI Antitrust Chronicle, and hope you enjoy reading this special China issue.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Xiaoru Wang, Ph.D.
Kun Huang, Ph.D.
Zhou Zhong, Ph.D.
