China Gets Serious About Antitrust Enforcement

Earlier this month, the European antitrust watchdog announced that it signed a cooperation agreement with the Ministry of Commerce, China's merger review authority. In many of today's larger transactions, deals have a significant impact in both the European Union and in China. In the EU, the European Commission is the competent authority on merger control procedures for larger deals; its counterpart in China is MOFCOM. The announcement reflects MOFCOM's growing role in global enforcement, also reflected in recent merger decisions and its increasing focus on gun-jumping.

Since China's Anti-Monopoly Law became effective in 2008, MOFCOM has reviewed more than 1,000 transactions and quickly established itself as one of the major merger control enforcement authorities in the world. In the same time period, the EC reviewed about 1,693 different merger cases (through September 2015).