Economics and Private Antitrust Litigation in China

Economics and Private Antitrust Litigation in China by Dennis Lu, Government of Canada – Competition Policy Branch and Guofu Tan, University of Southern California – Department of Economics

ABSTRACT: Since the introduction of China’s Anti-Monopoly Law in 2008, private litigation has been increasing in the areas of monopolistic agreements and abuses of dominance. In addition, China’s Supreme People’s Court recently issued its judicial interpretation concerning the application of the law in order to offer some guidance in resolving private disputes. The purpose of this paper is to explain how competition economics can help to provide evidence in these private litigations. We discuss how the Anti-Monopoly Law and the judicial interpretation seem to take a rule of reason approach, as well as what roles economic analyses and economists may play in related litigation. We describe the economic evidence being used and accepted in recent Chinese cases that have reached the Chinese courts of appeals and further provide our views on what other evidence could have been offered in these cases.