Joint Restriction Of Competition And Its Legal Regulation,

Competition is a social phenomenon existing universally in human life, which pushes forward the vigorous development of the society. Competition is not only the most rudimental operation mechanism in the market economy, but also the most effective approach to make economy prosperous and maintain its sustainable prosperity. The most positive significance of competition lies in the fact that it can rationally allot the social resources, fully activate marketers, cut down costs, raise efficiency and rapidly promote the development of productivity.Where there is competition, there are great social benefits. Meanwhile, there also exists great pressure. The losers in competition would be in danger of profit decrease or losing money, or being eliminated. In order to evade the competitive pressure and make the maximum economic benefits, some marketers always defy laws and ethics, and adopt improper approaches to competition. The uniform action to limit competition is an illegal and unfair competitive approach most frequently adopted. The so-called uniform action to limit competition means the action that two or more than two independent performers of activities jointly seek to limit competition by contracts, agreements, resolutions, coordination, etc.. Mostly the uniform action to limit competition includes the ways of fixed prices, quantity limitation, market division, boycott, exclusive trade agreement, selective sale agreement, franchised agreement, package sales, etc..At present, China has not stipulated special laws concerning uniform action to limit competition, while the regulations and rules concerning uniform action to limit competition are mostly scattered in "The Law Against Improper Competition", "The Price Law", "The Law of Bidding and Tender Inviting", in other administrative, local regulations and rules, and in governmental regulations and rules as well as in a series of administrative documents such as governmentannouncements, decisions, decrees, etc.. These laws and regulations provide the direct legal bases for preventing and punishing the uniform action to limit competition. But with the market competition increasingly sharpening, the approaches of the uniform action to limit competition also become pluralized. The legal responsibilities for uniform action to limit competition are not stipulated completely, strictly and carefully. The research on the uniform action to limit competition is not thorough or profound. In view of the situation, the author intends to do some initial explorations of the uniform action to limit competition, and the laws, regulations and systems concerned on the basis of overall investigation on the uniform action to limit competition. The author had a hard time during the writing of this paper because of the limitation of her own knowledge. Therefore, there exist faults and errors in the paper. The author sincerely hopes this paper can attract very valuable remarks from experts and more scholars would show concern over the research on the uniform action to limit competition.