On January 23, 2025, the Anti-Monopoly and Anti-Unfair Competition Commission under China’s State Council officially released the PRC Anti-Monopoly Guidelines for the Pharmaceutical Sector (“the Pharmaceutical Guidelines”). From release of the draft for public comments on August 9, 2024, to its formal issuance on January 23, 2025, it took only around six months.
Competition Law/ Anti-Monopoly Law
AnJie Broad Partners at ABA Asia-Pacific Forum in Singapore
From 26 to 28 February 2025, Dr Zhan Hao and Ms Song Ying, partners at AnJie Broad Law Firm, participated in the ABA Asia-Pacific Conference held in Singapore Management University.
Bringing together over 200 legal professionals from around the world, the conference served as a platform for in-depth discussions on key legal and regulatory developments…
Highlights of China’s First Horizontal Merger Review Guidelines
On 10 December 2024, the State Administration for Market Regulation (“SAMR”) released the Guidelines for Review of Horizontal Concentration of Undertakings (“Guidelines”). It is the first time that China publishes guidelines to display the detailed analytical framework, review approach and key considerations in the merger review procedure. The Guidelines were based on years of review…
SAMR Merger Control Statistics in the First Half of 2024
On July 30, 2024, China’s merger control authority, the State Administration for Market Regulation (“SAMR”), released its official statistics on the merger review cases in China in the first half of 2024. This note outlines the key statistics published by SAMR and extracts a few implications thereon for companies that keep an eye on China’s…
First Publicly Released Sanction for Gun-jumping under China’s Amended Anti-monopoly Law: Fines of RMB 1.5 Million Imposed on Each of the Undertakings
On 7 June 2024, the State Administration for Market Regulation (“SAMR”) released its decision against Shanghai Highly (Group) Co. Ltd. (“Shanghai Highly”) and Qingdao Haier Air Conditioning Co. Ltd. (“Qingdao Haier”) for their failure to obtain the SAMR’s prior approval before setting up a joint venture that was caught by China’s merger control regime (the…
Antitrust Compliance Incentive Mechanism in China
Interpretation of the Guidelines on Antitrust Compliance for Undertakings (Draft for Public Comments)
On September 18, 2020, the State Administration for Market Regulation (“SAMR”) released the Guidelines on Antitrust Compliance for Undertakings. On March 21, 2024, SAMR released a draft for public comments of the revised Guidelines on Antitrust Compliance for Undertakings (the…
The Value and Significance of the Rare Earth Antitrust Litigation
–At the Juncture of the Supreme Court Judgment
At the onset of 2024, AnJie Broad’s antitrust team secured a pivotal second instance judgment from the Supreme People’s Court of China (“the Supreme Court”) in the rare earth antitrust litigation. The ruling completely overturned the first instance judgement rendered by the first instance court…
The Boundary of AML’s Application in the Intellectual Property Realm
——Analysis of the Supreme Court’s Trial Pattern in the First Antitrust Litigation of Rare Earth Sector
Introduction
Recently, the Supreme People’s Court of China (“the Supreme Court”) has rendered its second instance judgment on the first antitrust case in China’s rare earth industry. The ruling overturned the first instance judgement by having dismissed…
Prosecutorial Civil Public Interest Litigation of Antitrust Case Under the New China’s Anti-Monopoly Law
Preface
The revised Anti-Monopoly Law of the People’s Republic of China (“New AML”) entered into force on August 1, 2022. The New AML introduces in the second paragraph of Article 60 that “where the monopolistic conduct of an undertaking damages social and public interest, the people’s procuratorate at or above the level of…
Key Changes to China’s Merger Control Regime in the New Era
After 14 years of enforcement of China’s Anti-Monopoly Law (the “AML”) since 2008, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China has amended the AML after a two-year review with several rounds of deliberations and issued a new version (“the New AML”) on June 24, 2022. In addition to updating the rules regulating…