Enforcement practice reform: a public interest test for China's anti-monopoly law

This paper demonstrates that even though the importance of understanding and achieving the "public interest" in China's anti-monopoly law context has been addressed (Article 1 of the Anti-Monopoly Law of China 2007), there is major disagreement on the meaning of the "public interest" among Chinese competition law scholars, industrial policy makers, market actors and consumers. It is vital to help elucidate a common understanding of the notion of public interest by establishing a public interest test model as a control mechanism for the application of anti-competitive prohibitions to restrain the anticompetitive behaviour of both private and State-owned businesses, because, without such common accepted understanding, China's ability to use the public interest test will otherwise be incoherent and will call into question the legitimacy of law and regulation for the public good. Government is often reluctant to invoke this restraint for fear of being accused of being anti-business, when in fact the public interest might be overwhelmingly threatened by the non-contested merger activity in the marketplace. Thus, this paper proposed a public interest test, which will include different elements regarding different situations in China.