compliance

Subscribe to compliance via RSS

By Susan Ning, Liu Jia and Hazel Yin

On 22 February, 2013, Guizhou Provincial Pricing Administration (“Guizhou Pricing Administration”) released the decision to impose a penalty of RMB 247 million (about USD 39.8 million) on Kweichow Moutai, the most famous Chinese state-owned producer of premium liquor, for administering resale price maintenance (“RPM”).  On the same day, Sichuan Provincial Development and Reform Commission (“Sichuan PDRC”) released its decision to penalize Wuliangye, another state-owned premium liquor producer, in an amount of RMB 202 million (about USD 32.6 million) for RPM as well.  Both agencies are local counterparts of the National Development and Reform Commission (“NDRC”), which is charged with the responsibility to enforce against price-related monopoly agreements, including RPM under the Anti-Monopoly Law (“AML”).

The news has made a huge stir, because this is the first time the Chinese AML enforcement agencies penalized RPM under the AML.  Besides, the two fines add up to RMB 449 million (about USD 72.4 million) in total, the largest penalty in China’s AML enforcement history so far.
Continue Reading Chinese Antitrust Authorities Imposed Large Fines on Kweichow Moutai and Wuliangye for Resale Price Maintenance

By Susan Ning, Hazel Yin and Yunlong Zhang

The year 2012 marks the fifth year of the enactment and implementation of China’s Anti-Monopoly Law (“AML”).  Over the past year, we have witnessed substantial progress of the merger control regime and antitrust administrative investigations, in particular in the area of cartel investigations.  With the promulgation of judicial interpretation of the Supreme People’s Court, antitrust civil litigations are also picking up.  As the Year of Dragon is coming to an end, we present this article with an overview of how the AML has been implemented in the past year, together with our observations.  

I. Merger Control

The Ministry of Commerce (“MOFCOM”), the authority in charge of merger control review, maintained a similar caseload in 2012 compared to 2011 and has been gradually establishing its international reputation as one of the most important antitrust authorities.  
Continue Reading The Anti-Monopoly Law of China: What We Have Seen in 2012?

By Antitrust & Competition Group

On 23 December 2013, the All China Lawyers Association (ACLA) announced the establishment of the Antitrust Committee, showing that antitrust law has been recognized by the legal community in China as an important segment of the Chinese legal system.

The ACLA is the association of all admitted PRC lawyers.  It was established in 1986 according to the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Lawyers.  The newly established Antitrust Committee is one of the 22 professional committees under the ACLA.  Professional committees are responsible for providing guidance to lawyers regarding their practice, providing opinions and suggestions in the legislation process, and organizing workshops and conferences for communication of the latest development of the law.  We believe that the Antitrust Committee will provide a platform among antitrust practitioners, enforcement agencies, the judiciary and the academics and will play an active role in facilitating development of antitrust law in China.
Continue Reading All China Lawyers Association Launched Antitrust Committee

By Susan Ning, Kailun Ji and Kate Peng


Although the antimonopoly enforcement in China is still in its formative years, the significant progress made by China’s antimonopoly regulators has brought about far-reaching impacts on companies doing business in China.  Recently, the three anti-monopoly regulators, i.e. the National Development and Reform Commission (“NDRC“), the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (“SAIC“) and the Ministry of Commerce (“MOFCOM“) published their latest enforcement achievements, and NDRC for the first time disclosed its case volume to the public.Continue Reading Chinese antitrust regulators provided updates on their enforcement activities

By Susan Ning, Liu Jia and Kate Peng

China’s famous producers of premium liquor, Kweichow Moutai Co Ltd. (Maotai) and Wuliangye Group Co., Ltd. (Wuliangye) recently announced that they would correct their behaviors suspicious of AML violation.  The corrections were said to be made after the companies being “inspected” by the National Development and Reform Commission (“NDRC”) and the relevant provincial pricing administration. It has been the hottest topic on China’s Anti-monopoly Law (the “AML”) after the resounding LCD panel case closed by NDRC in early this month.

Maotai and Wuliangye are both famous Chinese premium liquor brands and the price of their products is relatively high in tradition.  In early January, the companies issued notices respectively announcing punishments on the distributors who sold their products at a price below the lowest resale price set by the companies.  Maotai also punished the distributors who made cross-regional sales. It is reported that the chairman of Maotai even stated in a recent countrywide distributor meeting that the retail price of Feitian Maotai can not be less than 1,519 yuan and the price of group-purchase can not be less than 1,400 yuan, and that Moutai would sternly punish those who breach the price “fortress”. 
Continue Reading NDRC Say No to Resale Price Maintenance – Company should be Cautious on Pricing Strategy

By Susan Ning and Kate Peng
 
On Jan 4th, the National Development and Reform Commission (“NDRC“) published that they had imposed fines in a total amount of RMB 353 million (approximately USD 56 million) on 6 LCD panel manufacturers, including Samsung and LG of Korea and ChiMei, AU Optronics, Chunghwa Picture Tubes and HannStar from Taiwan region.  This is China’s first antitrust enforcement action against international cartels.  It also imposes the highest penalties in China’s antitrust enforcement history.

According to the press releases of NDRC on its official website 1, during the period from 2001 to 2006, the 6 LCD manufacturers, which accounted for about 80% of the global LCD panel market, convened 53 meetings in Taiwan and Korea to exchange market information and negotiate the price of LCD panels.  NDRC received complaints on the cartel from major Chinese TV makers in December 2006.  The TV makers also reported non-price related misconducts of the panel manufacturers, including providing an 18-month warranty only and failing to provide high-end products in a timely manner.
Continue Reading NDRC Imposed Stiff Fines on Multinational LCD Manufacturers in China’s First Antitrust Enforcement Action against International Cartels

By Susan Ning, Ji Kailun and Hazel Yin 

On December 6th, 2012, the Ministry of Commerce (“MOFCOM“) cleared the proposed establishment of a joint venture (“JV“) by ARM Holdings plc (“ARM“), a UK semiconductor intellectual property (“IP“) supplier, Giesecke & Devrient GmbH (“G&D“) and Gemalto NV (“Gemalto“), both providers of security solutions, with behavioral conditions.  This marks the third conditional clearance of JVs issued by MOFCOM.  The JV will be engaged in providing security solutions named trusted execution environments (“TEE“) for consumer electronic devices. Continue Reading MOFCOM cleared Joint Venture between ARM, Giesecke & Devrient and Gemalto with Conditions

By Susan Ning, Kate Peng and Yunlong Zhang

 

On December 4th and 5th, 2012, the first China Competition Policy Forum (the “Forum“) was held in China University of  Political Science and Law.  The Forum was sponsored by the expert advisory group of the Anti-monopoly Commission of the State Council.   The Directors-General of the three enforcers under the Anti-Monopoly Law (the “AML“), i.e. the Ministry of Commerce (“MOFCOM“), the National Development and Reform Commission (“NDRC“) and the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (“SAIC“) attended the Forum and introduced the latest development of their AML enforcement activities.1

According to Director-General Shang Ming (尚明) of the Anti-Monopoly Bureau of MOFCOM, up to September 30, 2012, a total of 622 merger notification filings were received by MOFCOM, among which 562 were accepted and 510 were closed.  Amongst the cases having been closed, only 1 case was rejected (i.e., Coca Cola’s acquisition of Hui Yuan) and 15 cases were cleared with conditions.   Mr. Shang mentioned the publication of 458 unconditionally approved cases in November this year2,    and indicated that MOFCOM would regularly summarize and release the unconditionally cleared cases in the future.

 
Continue Reading Heads of the Three Antitrust Enforcement Agencies Attended the First China Competition Policy Forum

By Susan Ning and Hazel Yin

On November 16, 2012, the Ministry of Commerce (“MOFCOM“) released the latest data of unconditionally approved notifications of concentrations, including the total number and the list of all transactions with the name of each transaction and the undertakings concerned. According to an earlier piece of press release, MOFCOM will disclose information of unconditionally cleared cases on a quarterly basis1.

From August 1, 2008 when the Anti-monopoly Law (“AML”) became effective to September 30, 2012, MOFCOM cleared 474 cases, of which 458 cases were cleared unconditionally2.
Continue Reading China’s Ministry of Commerce Released List of Unconditionally Approved Notifications of Concentrations

By Susan Ning and Kate Peng

In August 2012, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce published the fifth draft of the Guidelines on Anti-Monopoly Law Enforcement in the Field of Intellectual Property (the “Draft Guidelines“). Although compulsory licensing is not expressly mentioned in the Draft Guidelines, many provisions therein seem to imply it being a possible remedy for relevant monopolistic conducts in the IP field. For example, where a dominant market player’s refusal to license has anti-competitive effects1, a compulsory license could be the right answer to the problem. However, the role to be played by the antitrust enforcement agencies in compulsory licensing is not clearly defined under the current legal system.

There are very limited provisions in the Chinese law with respect to compulsory licensing.
Continue Reading What is the role of an antitrust enforcement agency in compulsory licensing?