Chinese Antitrust Guidelines on Leniency and Commitments Offer Companies a "Way Out"

November 19, 2020 | BY

Susan Mok

Fay Zhou, Vivian Cao and Xi Liao of Linklaters discuss the recently introduced Leniency and Commitments Guidelines by highlighting their differences in application, scope and legal implications, as well as whether companies should adopt the leniency or commitments mechanisms to seek comparatively favorable or less severe outcomes when responding to antitrust investigations

 

In the summer of 2020, China's State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) published four antitrust guidelines signed-off by the Anti-monopoly Commission of the State Council. Two of these guidelines relate to how companies may avoid administrative penalty altogether or receive reduced fines in case of alleged antitrust infringements: (1) Guidelines on Application of the Leniency System in Horizontal Monopoly Agreement Cases (the Leniency Guidelines) (横向垄断协议案件宽大制度适用指南); and (2) Guidelines for Commitments Offered by Business Operators in Monopoly Cases (the Commitments Guidelines) (垄断案件经营者承诺指南).

 

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