New Regulation on Abuse of Market Dominance and Prospect of Public Enforcement in China

By ZHANG Chenying (Tsinghua University)¹

Introduction

From August 1, 2008, the date China’s Anti-Monopoly Law became effective, China’s anti-monopoly law enforcement authorities have identified 61 cases of abuse of market dominance,² and punished certain relevant undertakings, including in several well-known cases, such as the Qualcomm case pursued by the National Development and Reform Commission,³ the Tetra Pak case by the former State Administration for Industry and Commerce,⁴ and the chlorpheniramine maleate case by the State Administration for Market Regulation.⁵ The industries involved in the cases are mainly those important to various people’s livelihood, such as telecommunications, water/power/gas, salt, and medicine, accounting for 50% of the total number of the cases.

On April 10, 2018, the State Administration for Market Regulation⁶ (“SAMR”) was established to be responsible for anti-monopoly law enforcement in a centralized way, ending past decentralized law enforcement. and developing a unified standard of enforcement. On June 26, 2019, the SAMR promulgated the Interim Provisions on Prohibiting Abuse of Market Dominance (the “Interim Provisions”),⁷ which became formally effective on September 1, 2019. The Interim Provisions summarize the approaches and mature law enforcement practices over the past decade, unify, refine and optimize the system for regulating abuse of market dominance after the integration of anti-monopoly law enforcement autho