AMB Director Shang Ming Speaks on Merger Enforcement in 2011

By Susan Ning, Liwei Wang and Hazel Yin

On 27 December 2011, the Ministry of Commerce ("MOFCOM") made a press release on its major merger enforcement work in 2011.¹  Mr. Shang Ming, Director General of MOFCOM’s Anti-monopoly Bureau and Chairman of the General Office of the State Council’s Anti-monopoly Commission, gave a briefing at the press release and responded to press inquiries.

According to Mr. Shang, from January to mid-December, 2011, MOFCOM received a total of 194 merger control filings, an increase of 43% compared to the same period last year. Among the received filings, 179 filings have been accepted and 160 filings have been reviewed and closed.

Of the 160 closed cases, 151 cases were granted unconditional approval (94%), 4 cases were granted conditional approval (3%), and 5 cases were withdrawn by the applicants after case acceptance (3%). A breakdown of the filings by the industrial classification for national economic activities is as follows:

In terms of international cooperation, Mr. Shang mentioned that MOFCOM developed the guidance for cooperation on merger cases with the United States Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission in late November. The guidance mainly sets down the framework for an information exchange mechanism for the three agencies to cooperate in merger reviews.  This is in addition to MOFCOM’s participation in the regular Sino-Europe competition dialogue with the European Union, and the execution of the Memorandum of Understanding on Antimonopoly and Antitrust Cooperation with the US antitrust agencies in July.²  

As to the prospects in 2012, Mr. Shang stated that MOFOCM will promulgate a series of regulations such as the Rules on Imposing Restrictive Conditions for Concentration of Business Operators (《经营者集中附加限制性条件的规定》), the Interim Measures on Investigation and Punishment of Failure to Duly Notify Concentrations of Undertakings (《未依法申报经营者集中调查处理暂行办法》),³  and the Measures on Investigation and Punishment of Concentrations of Undertakings Below Filing Thresholds Yet Suspected of Monopoly  (《未达申报标准涉嫌垄断经营者集中查处办法》). 

Mr. Shang also mentioned that MOFCOM will update the merger filing report form currently in use. In the meantime, MOFCOM will continue to work on developing a summary procedure for relatively easy and straightforward cases to shorten the case review time and to focus the limited resources on more complicated cases.
 

¹The complete text of the press release is available at: http://www.mofcom.gov.cn/aarticle/ae/slfw/201112/20111207901483.html (in Chinese).

²For more information about the Memorandum of Understanding on Antimonopoly and Antitrust Cooperation, please refer to our previous article entitled The PRC Antimonopoly Enforcement Agencies and the US Antitrust Agencies signed Antitrust MOU.

³This measure has been promulgated on December 30, 2011 and will come into effect on February 1, 2012.