중국 반독점법 2020년 개정초안의 의의

The Significance of the Amendment to the 2020 Chinese Antitrust Law

Since anti-monopoly law enforcement in 2008 in China, there have been some problematic aspects such as the opacity of law enforcement, the issue of judging criteria for market dominance for various online operators in the digital economy era, and the low level of sanctions against illegal acts. In China, a public opinion hearing plan was released in order to further improve the antitrust system. From January 2, 2020, related organizations and individual opinions were collected through the homepage of the National Market Supervision and Administration website, email and mail. This can be seen as the first big revision in the history of Chinese antitrust law. There were a number of positive aspects of the draft revision, for example, for the first time, the regulation of operators in the Internet sector was included. In addition, the M&A review system has been improved, and it has been shown that it has improved the operability in the enforcement of the antitrust law and judicial application, and there have been many developments in the recognition of monopoly. In addition, the punishment for widespread misconduct has been strengthened. However, there are several things that needs to be reconsidered or improved in the recent revised draft. Firstly, as the revised draft pursued promoting innovation for the purpose of the Antitrust Act, it would be desirable to eliminate promoting innovation for the purpose of the anti-trust law. Secondly, the introduction of a fair competition review system for the first time in the draft revision can be seen as a show of firm regulatory commitment to regulate administrative monopoly. But, when administrative agencies and public organizations are not subject to fair competition review, they must correct the limitation that there is no regulation on what measures are taken. Thirdly, in this draft amendment, additional considerations were added in determining the dominant position of the market in the new Internet industry. Still, it seems necessary to review some of the limitations in the draft.