| Summary/Abstract |
Thirty years after the launch of the “reform and opening up” policy, China finally implemented its first anti-trust law in 2008, a move lauded by an international law firm as a “tremendous leap forward” that brought the country “squarely into the modern world of antitrust and competition law.”(1)Yet, given the law’s novelty on Chinese soil, few would have expected China to suddenly begin aggressively enforcing it. Since 2013, Chinese anti-trust regulators have become active in deploying the anti-trust law to initiate probes and impose hefty fines on industry associations, foreign carmakers, eyewear makers, and baby formula manufacturers, meanwhile justifying “dawn raids” on selected firms. Many of their high-profile targets are multinational firms that until then enjoyed a comfortable presence in China. Facing tightened enforcement, foreign companies and chambers of commerce are complaining that regulators are using the law selectively against foreign firms and that investigations lack transparency and respect for the rule of law.Chinese regulators, on the other hand, argue that they are impartial towards domestic and foreign companies, and that they are merely enforcing the anti-trust law in order to create a level playing field for both domestic and foreign companies, benefit Chinese consumers, and bring China closer to the rule of law.
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