CHINA’S ANTI-MONOPOLY LAW
After more than a decade of deliberations, the People’s Republic of China promulgated its Anti-Monopoly Law (“AML”) at the Twenty-Ninth Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Tenth National People’s Congress on August 30, 2007. The new law will go into effect tomorrow, August 1, 2008. Like the Indian Competition Act, which will be effective later this year, the AML is based on Europe’s antitrust statutes broadly covering prohibitions on monopoly agreements, abuse of dominant positions and mergers. The law also has a highly controversial clause that prohibits the abuse of “administrative powers.” It also calls for the creation of an Anti-Monopoly Enforcement Authority (“AEA”), an “umbrella” antitrust regulatory agency.