China Drafts New Rules to Bolster Anti-Monopoly Oversight

 

China’s market regulator unveiled new draft rules on Monday designed to bolster competition and oversight of anti-monopolistic behaviour.

The new provisions just over a month before the country implement its revised anti-monopoly law in August.

The State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) said it wanted to seek public comment for its proposals, which range from descriptions on what deals could be perceived as monopolistic to regulations governing how local authorities with the power to restrict competition should behave.

For example, companies will need to seek an anti-trust review about their planned mergers or acquisitions if one of the parties’ global annual revenue hit over 12 billion yuan ($1.79 billion) and at least two parties’ domestic annual sales reached 800 million yuan, the SAMR said.

Chinese regulators began cracking down in late 2020 on multiple industries, and, in particular, targeted its once free-wheeling “platform economy” companies over behaviours it considered monopolistic, fining the likes of Alibaba Group and Meituan billions of dollars.

Last year, the regulators started to amend the country’s 2008 anti-monopoly law, adding fresh emphasis on the digital economy and increasing penalty fines for instance. The revisions will take effect on August 1, Xinhua reported last week.

 

• Reuters with additional editing by Jim Pollard

 

 

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