Private Litigation Under China's Anti-Monopoly Law: Empirical Evidence and Procedural Developments

Abstract

The growing scale of enforcement of China’s Anti-Monopoly Law (AML) has drawn the attention of multinational businesses, their legal counsels, and the academic community concerned with the development of this branch of law. While much of the public discourse has evolved around the public enforcement of the AML by the administrative authorities, relatively little attention has been paid to the development of the judicial practice of private anti-monopoly litigation. The present paper is a result of the empirical case law research based on the analysis of the published court judgments guided by the judicial interpretations issued by the Supreme People’s Court. The research addresses the procedural law aspects that continue to influence the development of private enforcement of the AML in China: legal standing of the plaintiff, burden and standard of proof, assessment of economic evidence, available judicial remedies, etc. The paper demonstrates how the specified procedural rules have affected the judicial practice and attempts to map the directions for further development of China’s legal framework for private enforcement of the AML. The paper also contributes to the broader discussion on the reform of the private enforcement of competition law, which is currently being undertaken in the European Union and other national and regional competition law regimes worldwide.

Keywords: Anti-Monopoly Law, Antitrust, China, Competition Law, Courts, Private Litigation, Civil Procedure, Private Enforcement, Burden of Proof, Standard of Proof, Damages

JEL Classification: K21, K41, K4, K40, K13