The administrative litigations play an essential role in the Anti-Monopoly Law in China. Empirical research suggests that despite the preliminary development antitrust administrative litigations present the “four lowness” phenomenon, namely low start-up, low total case number, low rate of lawsuits against the competition authorities, and low winning rate for plaintiffs. The most severe problems remain two, namely plaintiffs' grounding and the scope of judicial review. It is both empirically urgent and theoretically necessary to establish special rules for antitrust administrative procedure. In order to promote and improve effective antitrust enforcement, it is proposed to recognize plaintiffs' grounding based on procedural participation, to let justice urge competition authorities to adopt procedural guidelines, and to mildly extend the scope of judicial review.

The China Anti-Monopoly Law (AML), which became effective August 1, 2008, is the first comprehensive competition law enacted by China. The AML prohibits a broad array of agreements between competitors and commercial counterparties, as well as competitive conduct by single firms that may harm the competitive process. In addition, it establishes a mandatory administrative review procedure for mergers and acquisitions between companies meeting certain sales thresholds, globally or in China. Beyond these fundamental provisions, the AML prohibits certain types of administrative abuses believed to be prevalent in China and establishes a complex set of administrative agencies with broad powers to enforce the law. Anti-Monopoly Law and Practice in China is the first comprehensive treatment of the AML and the practice of antitrust law under this new system. Each chapter on the substantive provisions of the law includes practical advice on approaches to meeting the challenge of complying with the law's requirements, including analysis of likely interpretations and applications of the AML based on precedents in related economic laws and actions by other administrative agencies. Where policy choices are uncertain, the text will explore probable developments in China based on comparable applications of competition laws in other jurisdictions.

China's rise as an economic superpower has caused growing anxieties in the West. Europe is now applying stricter scrutiny over takeovers by Chinese state-owned giants, while the United States is imposing aggressive sanctions on leading Chinese technology firms such as Huawei, TikTok, and WeChat. Given the escalating geopolitical tensions between China and the West, are there any hopeful prospects for economic globalization? In her compelling new book Chinese Antitrust Exceptionalism, Angela Zhang examines the most important and least understood tactic that China can deploy to counter western sanctions: antitrust law. Zhang reveals how China has transformed antitrust law into a powerful economic weapon, supplying theory and case studies to explain its strategic application over the course of the Sino-US tech war. Zhang also exposes the vast administrative discretion possessed by the Chinese government, showing how agencies can leverage the media to push forward aggressive enforcement. She further dives into the bureaucratic politics that spurred China's antitrust regulation, providing an incisive analysis of how divergent missions, cultures, and structures of agencies have shaped regulatory outcomes. More than a legal analysis, Zhang offers a political and economic study of our contemporary moment. She demonstrates that Chinese exceptionalism-as manifested in the way China regulates and is regulated, is reshaping global regulation and that future cooperation relies on the West comprehending Chinese idiosyncrasies and China achieving greater transparency through integration with its Western rivals.

Article 50 of the Anti-Monopoly Law of China (AML) 2007 and its complementing rules, the Judicial Interpretation 2012 of the Supreme People's Court (SPC), have provided a legal framework for the antitrust damages action in China. However, the general and ambiguous language of Article 50 and the Judicial Interpretation 2012 fails to provide clear guidance for the courts and parties to antitrust damages actions, in terms of key issues, such as quantification of antitrust damages and the availability of collective action. Moreover, the current framework provided by the AML 2007 has not touched on some controversial issues, such as whether damages litigation is possible against antitrust violations conducted by an administrative agency. These weakness and gaps have impeded the development of the antitrust damages mechanism in China.Meanwhile, the EU has adopted Directive 2014/104 to facilitate private enforcement of competition law in the Member States. Due to the similarity in the combined public/private enforcement model of competition law between the EU and China, the thesis adopts the private enforcement mechanism of EU competition law, as a comparative reference. In doing so, the thesis seeks to fill in some gaps in the existing antitrust damages mechanism provided by the AML 2007, by focusing not only on civil procedural issues in the antitrust damages action against private anticompetitive behaviour, but also examining the administrative litigation procedures and substantive issues involved in the antitrust damages action against administrative monopoly.Regarding the debate on compensation vs. deterrence as goals of antitrust damages actions in China, the thesis contributes to this debate, by submitting that full compensation should be the goal actively pursued by antitrust damages actions, while deterrence, as a side effect of antitrust damages actions, complements optimal deterrence pursued by public enforcement of the AML. Then the thesis examines the quantification of antitrust damages which is directly linked to the achievement of full compensation.The thesis also seeks to propose a workable collective action mechanism for antitrust damages actions in China, which is indispensable to achieving full compensation in an antitrust mass harm situation. By referring to the recent reform of collective actions adopted in the UK, where opt-out collective proceedings have been introduced into the antitrust collective action, the thesis finds that opt-out proceedings would be a good incentive to support the initiation of antitrust damages litigation in China, while proper limitations are needed to be imposed on its application in order to avoid US-style unmeritorious litigation.In addition to private anticompetitive behaviour, the thesis also explores the antitrust damages mechanism against public anticompetitive behaviour, from both substantive and procedural perspectives. It finds that a proportionality test would be an approach to consider when assessing whether an anticompetitive administrative measure is justified on the grounds of public interest, or alternatively whether such regulation or behaviour amounts to abusive and ultimately illegal conduct. In the procedural aspect, the thesis proposes a two-step procedure, including first, judicial review of the alleged measure, and second, the follow-on damages assessment; and the requirement for a compulsory linkage to be established between them.

Derived from the renowned multi-volume International Encyclopaedia of Laws, this practical analysis of competition law and its interpretation in the China covers every aspect of the subject – the various forms of restrictive agreements and abuse of dominance prohibited by law and the rules on merger control; tests of illegality; filing obligations; administrative investigation and enforcement procedures; civil remedies and criminal penalties; and raising challenges to administrative decisions. Lawyers who handle transnational commercial transactions will appreciate the explanation of fundamental differences in procedure from one legal system to another, as well as the international aspects of competition law. Throughout the book, the treatment emphasizes enforcement, with relevant cases analysed where appropriate. An informative introductory chapter provides detailed information on the economic, legal, and historical background, including national and international sources, scope of application, an overview of substantive provisions and main notions, and a comprehensive description of the enforcement system including private enforcement. The book proceeds to a detailed analysis of substantive prohibitions, including cartels and other horizontal agreements, vertical restraints, the various types of abusive conduct by the dominant firms and the appraisal of concentrations, and then goes on to the administrative enforcement of competition law, with a focus on the antitrust authorities’ powers of investigation and the right of defence of suspected companies. This part also covers voluntary merger notifications and clearance decisions, as well as a description of the judicial review of administrative decisions. Its succinct yet scholarly nature, as well as the practical quality of the information it provides, make this book a valuable time-saving tool for business and legal professionals alike. Lawyers representing parties with interests in the China will welcome this very useful guide, and academics and researchers will appreciate its value in the study of international and comparative competition law.

China's Anti-Monopoly Law (AML) is one of the youngest and most influential antitrust laws in the world today. This book aims to provide a better understanding of the evolution of China's AML to the international community through a collection of e

Management and legal counsel of foreign companies operating in China as well as those outside China with Chinese business desperately need to keep up with the fast-paced antitrust developments in the most dynamic market in the world. The author of this book, Becky Koblitz, is a seasoned antitrust lawyer for a major U.S. law firm in Beijing. She has decades of legal experience as a prosecutor at the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as in-house counsel for a German subsidiary of a major American real estate development company and as a lawyer at law firms globally. Her rich experience in the U.S., Europe and China, now often regarded as the three centers of global antitrust, makes her the perfect candidate to write a book on China's antitrust development. Her book is a quick read that tells what there is to know about China's antitrust enforcement and includes practical advice and examples for the various aspects of antitrust: dealing with competitors, dealing within the supply chain, mergers, etc. She writes in a straight-forward language such that non-antitrust lawyers can get beyond stock phrases like "illicit price coordination," "abuse of dominance," or "unilateral effect." Her book is a valuable and practical "cookbook" for antitrust compliance training and beyond. Another feature of the book is that it provides both legal and economic perspectives on antitrust analysis in China, which is important given that economic analysis is increasingly adopted by China's antitrust agencies and the Chinese courts. Thus understanding the logic and methodology behind economic analysis as applied to Chinese cases is key to conducting proper antitrust legal analysis that is tailored to the Chinese context. To write a book on the burgeoning antitrust enforcement and practice for the constantly evolving Chinese market is a real challenge. The trick, and it is not as easy as you would think, is to write simple declarative sentences, understandable to the antitrust layman, and at the same time not lose the rigor of antitrust analysis. I think this relatively short book is a remarkable achievement in meeting such a challenge, but I invite you to judge for yourself.