Chinese Anti-Monopoly Commission Issues Compliance Guide for Operators

On September 11, the Anti-Monopoly Commission of the State Council issued its Anti-monopoly Compliance Guide for Operators (《经营者反垄断合规指南》). The Guide is an implementing document of the Anti-Monopoly Law and other relevant regulations. It takes effect immediately.

The Guide consists of 30 articles in six chapters, including a compliance management system, key compliance risks, compliance risk management, and compliance management guarantees. Of particular note are the following provisions.

The Guide stipulates that an operator may decide to establish a specific anti-monopoly compliance management system based on its business conditions and scale, or use the existing compliance management system for anti-monopoly compliance management. (Article 5.2)

Operators shall comply with various provisions to limit monopoly power, including the prohibition of monopoly agreements (Article 11), prohibition of abuse of a dominant market position (Article 12), application and review of concentration of operators (Article 13), legal liability of operators (Article 14), commitment system (Article 15), obligation to cooperate with investigations (Article 17), and overseas risk warning (Article 18).

The Guide also identifies four aspects of the compliance risk management, including: identifying and assessing the risks (Articles 19 and 20), creating a risk warning system (Article 21) and risk response mechanism (Article 22). It also states that operators may adopt an appropriate system to protect the whistle-blower, and commit not to disclose the whistle-blower’s information or take any unfavorable measures against the whistle-blower (Article 24)