How to strengthen transparency in antitrust law enforcement? (Part II) — Investigations into monopoly agreements and abuses of dominant market position

1. Upon receiving external reports, in addition to promptly verifying the reported information and responding to the reporter, authorities should also publish annually the number of reports received and whether cases were opened, thereby preventing situations where reports that should have been accepted or investigated are delayed, eliminating incomplete antitrust enforcement, or substituting antitrust penalties with warning meetings (see related discussions: 'Proposal to the State Administration for Market Regulation to Rectify the Jiangxi Provincial Market Supervision Bureau’s Erroneous Practice of Replacing Antitrust Enforcement with Warnings in the Jiujiang Motor Vehicle Inspection Industry Alleged Monopoly Agreement Case'; 'Express Delivery | Monopoly Agreements | Zhejiang May Investigate Collusive Price Hikes and Customer Allocation in the Express Delivery Industry—What about Other Provinces?'). 2. For leads referred by other departments under the State Council, local governments, discipline inspection and supervision organs, anti-gang crime offices, inspection and supervision teams at all levels, or petition agencies, authorities should likewise publish annually the number of such referrals received and whether cases were opened, thus avoiding delays in handling these transferred leads. 3. Whenever an antitrust investigation is initiated against any business operator, such initiation must be publicly disclosed on the same day the case is formally opened; meanwhile, cooperation memoranda should be concluded as early as possible with domestic and foreign securities regulators to align on the timing and scope of disclosure regarding antitrust investigations involving listed companies. 4. For cases requiring on-site unannounced inspections, necessary disclosures—including the identity of the investigated party and the suspected illegal conduct—must be made publicly at the moment inspectors officially arrive and begin inspection work. 5. During investigations into concentrations of undertakings, if it is discovered that one or more parties involved in the concentration previously engaged in monopoly agreements or abuses of dominant market position—or if other unreported concentrations are uncovered, or concentrations implemented prematurely despite having been reported but not yet approved—such conduct must be disclosed immediately upon case opening, rather than waiting until after the merger review concludes. This prevents further harm to market competition, other operators, and consumers (likewise, if unannounced investigations are conducted during merger reviews for evidence collection, disclosures must be made promptly once on-site investigation commences). 6. During individual case investigations, although there is no limit on the number of meetings between case handlers and parties or on supplementary evidence submissions, records must be kept of all such interactions and submissions; and, without disclosing trade secrets, a summary of these interactions and submissions must be included in the final decision, thereby preventing unwarranted delays in case progress due to repeated or late evidence submissions. 7. During individual case investigations, progress updates must be published quarterly. For cases with straightforward facts and well-established precedents nationwide, resolution should be targeted within six months; if unresolved within six months, justification must be provided. For novel, complex cases—or those involving international cooperation—resolution should be targeted within two years, with estimated conclusion dates disclosed to prevent indefinite suspension of cases. 8. Where operators request hearings, summaries of the case facts and hearing matters must be publicly disclosed ten natural days before the hearing, enabling other operators, consumer protection organizations, relevant government departments, scholars and experts, industry associations, domestic and foreign chambers of commerce, and media reporters to adequately prepare for participation. 9. When operators submit commitments for rectification pursuant to Article 45 of the Anti-Monopoly Law and apply to suspend investigations, antitrust enforcement agencies must publicly disclose the investigation’s progress prior to deciding whether to suspend the investigation, and solicit public comments on the application. 10. When antitrust enforcement agencies accept operators’ commitments under Article 45 of the Anti-Monopoly Law and suspend investigations, they must publicly disclose both the suspension decision and its rationale, along with summaries of feedback collected during the public comment period—including whether such feedback was accepted or how related factual claims were verified. 11. During the suspension period, antitrust enforcement agencies must regularly (e.g., every three months) disclose operators’ progress in fulfilling their rectification commitments; where obvious delays in fulfillment are suspected, warnings regarding such delays must be issued concurrently with the progress update. 12. Prior to deciding whether to terminate investigations and exempt operators from administrative penalties based on their fulfillment of rectification commitments, antitrust enforcement agencies must solicit public comments on the operators’ commitment fulfillment status. 13. When issuing a decision to terminate an investigation, antitrust enforcement agencies must disclose in the decision document the feedback collected during the preceding public comment phase, along with responses to such feedback. 14. In investigating monopoly agreements, detailed disclosures must be made regarding circumstances where parties voluntarily confess and seek exemption from penalties—especially the timing of confession (e.g., whether before case opening), whether the party organized or coerced others into implementing the monopoly agreement, or participated in monopolistic conduct orchestrated by administrative organs abusing their power (see related discussion in the author’s commentary appended to the 'Guidelines on the Application of the Leniency System in Horizontal Monopoly Agreement Cases' issued by the State Council’s Anti-Monopoly Commission). 15. On the day notification of proposed penalties is issued—prior to formal issuance of penalty decisions—antitrust enforcement agencies must make a public disclosure, enabling investors, partners, and trading counterparts of the involved parties to timely understand the case, properly manage investment, cooperation, or transaction risks, and preserve potential evidence for civil compensation claims. 16. On the day a penalty decision is formally issued, antitrust enforcement agencies must publish it on the official website of the State Administration for Market Regulation; local market supervision bureaus must likewise publish it on their official websites on the same day. 17. When publishing penalty decisions, antitrust enforcement agencies must list the names of case handlers responsible for the specific case, as well as the names of lawyers retained by the parties—similar to judicial judgments—to enable social oversight and deter collusion between enforcement personnel and insiders through lifelong accountability mechanisms (see related discussion in 'Antitrust Enforcement Agencies Must Remain Vigilant Against Corruption'). 18. When publishing penalty decisions, agencies must publish complete lists of evidentiary chains and the dates evidence was obtained; information involving trade secrets or personal privacy must be redacted, while ensuring sufficient identifiability of the matters referenced by the evidentiary chain to safeguard logical coherence and evidentiary integrity. 19. When publishing penalty decisions, agencies must publish opinions submitted on record by scholars and experts, economic analysis institutions, accounting firms, notary offices, industry associations and chambers of commerce, domestic government departments, and foreign government departments—except where state secrets are involved; where trade secrets are involved, appropriate redactions or data/graphic de-identification must be applied. 20. During antitrust investigations, if scholars or experts are found to hold contradictory views or to have published identical opinions allegedly drafted by the investigated parties’ PR teams, such opinions must either be rejected outright or accompanied by explicit justification for acceptance (e.g., after media reports claimed Tencent Music’s investigation had been suspended, at least three scholars successively published near-identical supportive arguments online; see the author’s compilation on Zhihu: 'Compilation: Reports and Analytical Articles on Tencent Music’s Exclusive Licensing Model' https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/83423832). 21. When publishing penalty decisions, agencies must explicitly state whether the fine base is the global annual revenue of the group’s parent company, and disclose the methodology used to calculate confiscation of illegal gains; where illegal gains are not confiscated, agencies must fully justify this decision per requirements set forth by the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (see related discussions in 'Preliminary Assessment of the Alibaba “Either-Or” Case' and 'Six Questions Regarding Professor Shi Jianzhong’s Remarks on the Yangtze River Pharmaceutical Antitrust Case on CCTV’s News 1+1 Program'). 22. Penalty decisions must explicitly list the parties’ defense arguments and supporting evidence, as well as the antitrust enforcement agency’s reasons for rejecting or accepting those arguments and evidence. 23. Penalty decisions must explicitly list the parties’ arguments and evidence for mitigating fines, as well as the antitrust enforcement agency’s reasons for rejecting or accepting those arguments and evidence. 24. Penalties imposed on operators or natural persons who obstruct investigations or violate Article 52 of the Anti-Monopoly Law must be thorough: the corporate veil must be pierced to ultimately hold accountable the natural persons who initially decided to obstruct the investigation—thus preventing executives or actual controllers from evading legal liability behind limited liability companies. 25. After referring criminal leads—suspected violations of criminal law under Article 52 of the Anti-Monopoly Law—to investigative organs, antitrust enforcement agencies must make necessary disclosures. 26. During investigations into monopoly agreements or abuses of dominant market position, if antitrust enforcement agencies uncover leads involving organized crime or violent crimes, such leads must be promptly referred to public security organs, and disclosed either in the penalty decision or, following conclusion of related criminal proceedings, by procuratorial organs. 27. Where monopoly agreements or abuses of dominant market position under the Anti-Monopoly Law have inflicted massive economic losses on the national economy—for example, manipulating drug prices causing severe losses to China’s Basic Medical Insurance Fund or resulting in drug shortages; manipulating construction material prices or supply, directly or indirectly triggering serious production safety hazards or building quality risks; triggering systemic financial risks or severely infringing upon the lawful interests of numerous consumers and financial institutions; or platform enterprises jointly boycotting or abusing dominance to block competitors—thereby paralyzing or disrupting public transportation, public health, basic education, or other livelihood-critical services dependent on the boycotted or blocked platforms—the antitrust enforcement agencies must report such conduct to public security and procuratorial organs as 'illegal business operations seriously disrupting market order' under Item 4 of Article 225 of the Criminal Law, and issue public disclosures accordingly. 28. Individual penalty decisions must specify all rectification items required of the parties, and provide detailed disclosures regarding the parties’ restitution of unjust enrichment and plans or facts concerning lawful compensation to other operators and individuals; such elements must serve as core considerations for leniency in punishment. 29. Following issuance of individual case decisions, antitrust enforcement agencies must disclose which non-trade-secret case files—obtained during enforcement—civil claimants entitled to seek civil compensation may access for purposes of asserting such claims. 30. Where antitrust enforcement agencies are sued for failure to act, or challenged via administrative reconsideration or litigation due to parties’ dissatisfaction with penalty decisions, agencies must promptly disclose the progress of such administrative litigation or reconsideration.

Does combating monopoly necessarily require breaking up large corporations? Understanding several distinct approaches to resolving monopoly issues

When monopoly is mentioned, many people instinctively assume that large enterprises dominating markets must be broken up. Yet economics teaches us that monopoly governance cannot be one-size-fits-all: solutions differ fundamentally depending on the underlying causes of monopoly. At its core, monopoly arises when a firm wields market power—enabling it deliberately to restrict output and raise prices, thereby appropriating consumer welfare and generating deadweight loss. However, not all monopolies are harmful. In natural monopoly sectors—such as water supply and electricity grids—upfront infrastructure investment is extremely high; if multiple firms duplicate pipeline networks, total societal costs would rise sharply. Forcing breakup in such contexts would directly undermine overall efficiency. In modern market economies, monopoly governance follows four primary pathways: First, legal constraints through antitrust laws. Regulatory agencies investigate abuses of dominant market position—such as ‘choose-one-of-two’ mandates or predatory pricing aimed at eliminating rivals—and conduct pre-merger reviews of large acquisitions to prevent further market concentration. This remains the most widely used governance tool in the internet platform sector. In extreme cases, recalcitrant monopolists may face structural divestiture. Second, price regulation—commonly applied in natural monopoly industries. Regulators impose maximum price caps to prevent firms from exploiting their exclusive positions to overcharge users, while still ensuring firms earn reasonable returns to sustain operations.

Antitrust watchdog launches probe into Spain's Exolum over potential abuse

23 hours ago

Spain's CNMC launched proceedings against Exolum for allegedly abusing its dominant position by restricting access to its liquid hydrocarbon pipeline network and imposing excessive fees. The probe investigates potential harm to downstream competition and consumer prices.

reuters

2026-10-21

Antitrust watchdog launches probe into Spain's Exolum over potential abuse

Antitrust watchdog launches probe into Spain's Exolum over potential abuse

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