Reuters, Shanghai, December 19-Since the beginning of this year, China has accelerated the pace of anti-monopoly. Gan Lin, director of the National Anti-Monopoly Bureau, who was officially listed in November, said that the next step will be to strengthen anti-monopoly supervision and law enforcement to further maintain the order of fair competition in the market; continue to strengthen the anti-monopoly review of the concentration of operators to prevent “pink-point mergers” and capital disorder expansion.
A report published in the State Administration for Market Supervision and Administration here quoted Gan Lin as saying that the “Anti-Monopoly Law” currently being revised will further improve the anti-monopoly-related systems and legal responsibilities, increase penalties for monopolistic behavior, and strengthen anti-monopoly authority and effectiveness. .
When asked about the main challenges facing the current anti-monopoly supervision and enforcement, Gan Lin pointed out that they mainly include the fair competition system that needs to be further improved; the effectiveness of anti-monopoly supervision needs to be further improved, and the fair competition culture needs to be further cultivated.
She said that despite the continuous improvement of China’s anti-monopoly legal system, there are still issues such as relatively principled regulations and “inadequate penalties” for some monopolistic behaviors. In particular, with the rapid development of the digital economy, new industries, new business forms and new models are emerging one after another, competition methods are quite different from the traditional economy, and the impact of competition behavior is more complicated. There is an urgent need to further improve the relevant anti-monopoly legal system.
When talking about the next consideration of anti-monopoly work, she mentioned that at the level of improving the legal system, promoting the acceleration of the revision of the Anti-Monopoly Law, perfecting supporting legislation, improving the market access system, fair competition review mechanism, and digital economy fair competition supervision System, prevent and stop the abuse of administrative power to eliminate the system of restricting competition, etc.
“We will continue to regulate competition in key areas such as platform economy, technological innovation, information security, and people’s livelihood protection, and strictly investigate and punish monopoly agreements and abuse of market dominance in accordance with the law.” Gan Lin pointed out that at the same time, we will optimize the anti-monopoly regulatory system and mechanisms to further enhance anti-monopoly Monopoly supervision efficiency.
Since the beginning of this year, China has strengthened anti-monopoly supervision of Internet giants. In April of this year, the regulatory authorities issued a sky-high fine of 18.228 billion yuan on Alibaba. In October, Meituan’s anti-monopoly ticketing boots landed, and the State Administration of Market Supervision ordered Meituan to refund the exclusive cooperation deposit of 1.289 billion yuan in full and impose it on China in 2020. A fine of 3% of domestic sales of 114.748 billion yuan, totaling 3.442 billion yuan.
In late November, the State Administration for Market Regulation also made administrative punishment decisions on 43 cases of undeclared illegal implementation of the concentration of undertakings. The companies involved included Baidu, Alibaba, JD.com and Tencent. The list also includes Suning Tesco, Didi, and Alibaba’s Ele.me and Taobao. There are more than 10 cases involving Alibaba and Tencent.
China’s Central Economic Work Conference proposed to set “traffic lights” for capital. Xinhua News Agency subsequently commented that the policy signals are clear and are intended to guide capital to be active under the regulations. The State Administration for Market Regulation also convened a meeting and stated that it is necessary to deeply grasp the characteristics and behavioral laws of capital and set up “traffic lights” scientifically. (Finish)
Post manuscript Li Hongwei; reviewer Qu Guijuan
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