Authored by Michael Gu (michaelgu@anjielaw.com) adn Sun Sihui(sunsihui@anjielaw.com) at AnJie Law Firm
Introduction
The year 2017 marked the 10th anniversary of the promulgation of China’s Anti-monopoly Law.
The country’s three antitrust enforcement agencies – the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), theNational Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the State Administration for Industryand Commerce (SAIC) – used their extensive experience to continuously reinforce their professionalcompetence and enforcement efficiency.
Generally, antitrust enforcement has become the norm. As regards antitrust investigations in 2017,both the number and influence of the concluded cases published by the NDRC and SAIC appeared todecrease compared with 2016. However, the two agencies maintained a steady rate of antitrustenforcement.
Meanwhile, MOFCOM registered an upsurge in the number of conditionally cleared cases duringconcentration reviews. In addition, it strengthened its antitrust enforcement efforts in relation tonon-filers that should have notified MOFCOM of their concentrations.
By reviewing MOFCOM’s major antitrust enforcement events in 2017, this update summarizes the characteristics and developments of merger control review and provides an outlook of the trends in2018.