浩天反垄断政策与实务月刊 （2024年3月）

The year 2023 marked the 15th anniversary of the implementation of the Anti-Monopoly Law (AML) as well as the first full year after the newly amended Anti-Monopoly Law (the new AML) came into effect in August 2022. A series of supporting regulations have been introduced to implement the new AML. The State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) has also issued special guidelines for key antitrust areas, such as industry associations, standard-essential patents and fair competition reviews.

Under the guidance of the SAMR, local AMRs across the country launched special antitrust enforcement actions in the field of people’s livelihood during 2023. The focus was on the behaviour of monopoly agreements in the fields of building materials, consumer goods, automobiles and pharmaceuticals, and the abuse of market dominance in the fields of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), pharmaceuticals, public utilities and other natural monopolies, particularly fixing unfairly high prices, restricting transactions, tying, refusing to trade and attaching unreasonable conditions to transactions.

The SAMR maintained its customary rigorous, professional and cautious approach to merger control review in 2023. It concluded 797 merger reviews during the year, with four cases conditionally approved. The five local AMRs (in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Chongqing and Shaanxi) were engaged by the SAMR to review some of the simpler merger filing cases and played a crucial role, concluding half of the simple merger review cases in 2023.

3月4日，欧盟委员会表示将对苹果滥用流媒体音乐应用程序分发市场支配地位的行为处以超过 18 亿欧元的反垄断罚款。欧盟委员会调查发现，苹果在其应用商城设置了一系列禁止转介条款，限制了流媒体服务提供商向用户告知其他替代性音乐订阅选择的能力。这些禁止转介条款违反了欧盟反垄断法律法规，属于不公平的交易条件。在综合考虑了侵权行为的持续时间长达十年、行为严重性以及苹果的总营业额和市值，并且考虑罚款需要具有足够威慑力，欧盟委员会决定对苹果处以总额超过18亿欧元的反垄断罚款。此外，欧盟委员会还命令苹果停止使用禁止转介条款，以确保市场公平竞争和消费者权益。

3月22日，北京浩天（上海）律师事务所与致同会计师事务所联合主办，勤锡法证GIC协办的“中国企业跨境投资与合规研讨会”成功举办。本次研讨会汇聚了众多行业专家、企业代表和法律专业人士，共同探讨了“走出去”投资并购新趋势、ESG风险管理、数据合规管理、反垄断与外商投资审查等关键议题。北京浩天（上海）律师事务所管理合伙人顾正平律师在讲座中探讨了中资企业在新形势下出海时面临的域外监管挑战，重点分析了反垄断审查、欧盟外商投资审查和反补贴调查的监管要点及应对策略。通过案例分析，顾律师强调了合规管理的重要性，并提供了专业的法律建议，以帮助企业有效应对国际市场的复杂监管环境。