Antitrust Guidelines for the Platform Economy in the Era of Enhanced Antitrust Scrutiny

On February 7, 2021, the Anti-Monopoly Commission of the State Council of China released the Antitrust Guidelines for the Platform Economy Field (“Platform Guidelines”). These are the first antitrust guidelines in the world focused on the platform economy, and the short timespan between the draft for comments and its official promulgation shows China’s determination to intensify antitrust scrutiny on the platform economy. While staying within the regulatory framework set by the Anti-Monopoly Law, the Platform Guidelines made a number of noteworthy breakthroughs and clarifications by taking the industry-specific features into account. This article reads into the meaning of those noteworthy provisions under the Platform Guidelines, and offers the authors’ insights into their impacts on future antitrust practices in the platform economy.

By Wei Huang, Wendy Zhou, Xiumin Ruan & Xi Zhang¹

On February 7, 2021, the Anti-Monopoly Commission of the State Council of China promulgated the world’s first antitrust guidelines especially focused on the platform economy – the Antitrust Guidelines for the Platform Economy (hereinafter as the “Platform Guidelines”), which took less than 70 days after the end of the consultation period. While previous antitrust guidelines usually took years to be officially promulgated, the Platform Guidelines set the record for taking the shortest time. This shows China’s determination to intensify antitrust scrutiny on the platfo