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ARTICLE · 15 JULY 2025

China Compliance Update – Summer 2025

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Anti-corruption has remained an area of focus area for Chinese authorities in the first half of 2025, with major legislative updates and enforcement cases.

ChinaCriminal Law
John Tan
John Tan
Siyi Gu
Siyi Gu
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Legislative Updates

On June 27, 2025 the revised Anti-Unfair Competition Law (AUCL) was published, which will take effect on October 15, 2025.

The AUCL is China's major law regulating commercial bribery and was last revised in 2019. The main changes in the 2025 AUCL relating to commercial bribery are:

  • Emphasis on investigating and punishing both the payment of bribes and the acceptance of bribes. The 2019 AUCL did not explicitly prohibit accepting bribes and did not explicitly list administrative penalties for companies or individuals which accepted bribes, even though such conduct was, in practice, frequently the focus of enforcement actions. The 2025 AUCL fills this gap, bringing it in line with recent years' enforcement trends in China.

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