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By Susan Ning, Peng Heyue, Yang Nan and Wang Shengran King & Wood Mallesons’ Commercial & Regulatory group

Tips for understanding the legal regulation of “Internet of Vehicles”: “two terminals” and “one point”

“Internet of Vehicles” (IOV), also called the “intelligent connected vehicles”, as the name indicates, is a proposal to make automobiles and their functions networked and smart. It emerged in China in the 2010s and since then the number and diversity of applications and business scenarios have grown as the technology has developed. The classification of IOV services defined by Prof. Zhao Fuquan, Director of Tsinghua Automotive Strategy Research Institute at Tsinghua University is cited below[1]:
Continue Reading No “Data”, No “Internet of Vehicles”

By Susan Ning, Sun Yiming and Hazel Yin

It was reported 1 that on December 15, 2011, the Intermediate Court of Changsha, Hunan Province dismissed a consumer’s complaint that automobile producer Dongfeng Nissan and its 4S store 2 abused their dominant position in violation of China’s Anti-monopoly Law ("AML") by reaping exorbitant profits and expelling their competitors.  The case was originally filed in November 2010 and the court hearing was held in May 4, 2011.  It is the first antitrust lawsuit in the automobile industry and yet another defeated attempt by Chinese consumers in bringing AML private actions.

The plaintiff, Mr. Liu Dahua, is a Nissan car owner.  In October 2009, He had his car repaired at a local 4S store of Nissan.  Finding that the 4S store charged much higher price for repair services than other local auto repair factories, Mr. Liu asked the 4S store to sell the spare parts separately so he could do the repairs elsewhere.  However, the 4S store turned down his request saying that Dongfeng Nissan did not allow its 4S stores to sell spare parts alone, meaning that customers could only purchase the spare parts as well as the repair services together from Dongfeng Nissan’s 4S stores.Continue Reading Consumer Lost Antitrust Action against Dongfeng Nissan

China has issued a raft of measures aimed at moulding its auto industry to meet both the challenges posed by the global economic crisis and possibly even use the crisis to achieve long held strategic government goals. The short term goal appears to be to boost domestic consumption of cars and thereby stimulate the economy. The longer term goals have been previously enunciated in NDRC auto policy, namely consolidate the industry, build some national auto champions and build quality “green” cars. According to The New York Times, China is aiming to become a global leader in manufacturing electric cars.

Xu Ping, Partner, FDI

Continue Reading China Retools its Auto Industry to meet Global Challenges