Regulators Nearly Battle Ready

Article by Martyn Huckerby, Kien Choong and Sharon Wong

Originally Published 30^th April 2009

Predictions of a Chinese antitrust/competition law revolution appear to be well founded following new incentives to encourage whistle-blowing, unique minimum fines of one per cent of turnover, a court system increasingly prepared to accept private actions and another conditional merger control decision.

In this review, we focus on the latest merger clearance decision by the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) and new draft rules on monopoly agreements and abuse of dominance, published on 27 April, that look set to create a raft of regulatory investigations in China and will require firms to reassess their China regulatory strategy.