Industry Associations’ Restrictive Competition Behavior Regulated By The Anti-monopoly Law

Based on the specific conditions of domestic industry associations and the purpose of the Chinese Anti-monopoly Law, the range of industry associations regulated by the Anti-monopoly Law shall include commerce industry association, professional association, chamber of commerce and so on. The reason of Anti-monopoly Law’s regulation on industry association lays on the associations’inner motivation, potential advantages and behavioral factors of restricting competition.The restrictions of competition implemented by industry associations include monopolistic conducts in economic and administrative activities. Specifically, economic monopoly includes Cartel and collective boycott, while administrative monopoly includes market barriers and forcing business operators to practice monopoly.The illegality of industry associations’restrictions of competition is subject to their intentions and objective factors. Accordingly, in order to affirm its illegality, the intentions of industry associations and objective factors shall be taken into consideration comprehensively.The legal liability of industry associations’economic monopoly includes administrative liability and civil liability. The former one is classified as administrative penalty and revocation of registration. The latter one mainly refers to civil compensation.When monopolistic conducts are implemented by industry associations in economic activities, the members shall be dealt with respectively according to their different attitudes toward monopoly. Due to the specificity of industry associations, their forms of legal liability of the administrative monopoly differ from those of the original administrative monopoly. However, whether it is economic monopoly or administrative monopoly, exemption may be available under certain circumstances, which includes unconditional exemption, conditional exemption and other exemption.