黄勇：Antitrust 'not target' foreign companies

（来源：《中国日报海外版》 日期：2013-08-27)

Investigations part of overall enforcement of anti-monopoly law

Recent high-profile antitrust cases have reminded companies to comply with China's anti-monopoly law, said Huang Yong, deputy head of the expert advisory group of the State Council's Anti-monopoly Committee, in an interview with China Daily.

"To avoid potential legal risks, all companies doing business in China, foreign and domestic, should ensure their compliance with the anti-monopoly law," said Huang.

Five foreign milk powder producers were fined a total of $110 million for violating the law for entering into contracts with distributors to ensure a minimum sales price, according to the NDRC.

"These companies might not act like that in their own countries because generally, such behaviors also present grave legal risks in Western countries," said Huang.

Attracting attention

Huang said there is no doubt the purpose of the law is to protect fair competition in the market, and it's equally applicable to domestic and foreign companies.

However, compared with other countries' detailed competition laws that date back a century or more, the 5-year-old anti-monopoly law needs further development.

Enforcement in many cases "requires detailed guidance from the law, but now the anti-monopoly law only has eight articles and 57 items," making it too abstract, said Huang.

Anti-monopoly investigations now mainly focus on some urgent and influential sectors or cases that were reported, but they will be extended to more areas in the future, said Huang.

With the enhancement of regulatory bodies' power, enforcement of the anti-monopoly law will become "the new normal," said Huang.

More transparency

The anti-monopoly law is enforced by three government bodies: The Ministry of Commerce enforces merger provisions; the State Administration of Industry and Commerce focuses on non-price related actions and the NDRC takes on pricing arrangements.

"The Ministry of Commerce was more active and visible at the beginning, especially because of the premerger notification requirements. However, the NDRC seems to be catching up, especially with the recent infant formula cases," said Cernak.

"Both have quickly joined the ranks of important competition agencies globally ... it would be helpful if all three agencies were more transparent and explained to the parties why they are investigating and explained to everyone why they took certain enforcement actions," he said.

The State Administration for Industry and Commerce set up a new online portal in late June to post the results of completed anti-monopoly investigations, which has been welcomed as a new step toward transparent enhancement.

In the long run, if Chinese and foreign companies have a better understanding of what they must do to comply with the anti-monopoly law and, if the actions are based on competition principles, the results will be better for Chinese consumers, said Cernak.

附：原文报道链接

http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2013-08/27/content_16922370.htm