Chinese Supreme People’s Court Sets Framework For Antitrust Litigation

The Chinese Supreme People's Court ("SPC") has promulgated final Rules on Civil Litigation under the Anti-Monopoly Law ("AML") (the "Rules"), which will become effective on June 1, 2012.  These Rules set out the framework for civil antitrust litigation in China.  The implementation of these new rules and the advantages they give plaintiffs will accelerate the growth of private antitrust litigation in China.

The final Rules come more than a year after publication by the SPC of a draft for comments.  (see our May 2011 Alert, China's Supreme Court to Set Framework for Antitrust Litigation.) It appears that the SPC considered many of the comments submitted on the draft, as well as other significant developments in the anti-monopoly area over the past year, such as some noteworthy civil AML lawsuits and high-profile non-merger investigations by Chinese antitrust regulators. However, many of the provisions in the final Rules remain essentially unchanged from the 2011