Research On Antitrust Regulation Of Information Exchange Between Competitors

Information exchange between competitors refers to that inter-bank operators with direct or indirect competitive relations exchange their business information with each other in various ways,including direct or indirect information exchange between competitors,information exchange organized by industry associations,independent third-party communication market data,and private information such as price of unilateral announcement by competitors,etc.The information exchange between competitors has both positive and negative effects on market competition.Its positive effect is reflected in increasing the efficiency of market suppliers,improving the welfare of consumers and optimizing the allocation of resources,and the negative effect is to create a monopoly risk,Such as easy to contribute to horizontal cooperation among competitors,to maintain internal stability and external stability of transverse cooperation,lead to anti-competitive blockade,etc.it is also important reason for information exchange need regulation by law.In view of this,the antitrust legislation and law enforcement agencies,the challenge is how to distinguish between the exchange of information between competitors and the legitimacy,build behavior illegality judgment standard,and be included in the framework of anti-monopoly law regulation.America and the EU have a long history of antitrust regulation of information exchange between competitors.The federal court ruling on the information exchange between competitors can be traced back to 1921,in the different historical period appeared after a series of typical cases,based on these cases can be concluded that the United States courts and antitrust law enforcement agencies for the exchange of information between competitors attitude and judgment standard.The European commission about the first policy statement of information exchange between competitors can be traced back to 1968,As the EU courts about competitors information exchange between cases gradually increased,the European commission in 2011 issued Guidelines on the applicability of Article 101 of Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to horizontal co-operation agreements,and in the second chapter specifically for the exchange of information between competitors the general principles of the competitive evaluation made clear rules,providing guidelines to the European court and competition law enforcement agencies.Through to the United States and the European Union legislation and law enforcement experience,it is not difficult to find that in the information exchange between the competitors antitrust regulation,not simple broadly applicable itself illegal principle,but the difference between the actual situation of each information exchange between competitors to illegality judgment.There are two main factors for the analysis and determination of the illegality judgment:the characteristics of the market environment(transparency,concentration,product quality,etc.)of the competitors and the characteristics of the information exchanged(information content,timeliness,openness,etc.)Specific to China,the information exchange between competitors,and antitrust regulation legislation referring to the price law of the People's Republic of China,the anti-monopoly law of the People's Republic of China,the price of antitrust regulations,the administrative department for industry and commerce monopoly agreement shall be prohibited provisions of laws and regulations,the legislation is more fragmented,principle of content,the lack of information exchange behavior between competitors standard illegality,applicability and operability.And,so far our country has not yet been against antitrust enforcement of an exchange of information between competitors in practice,the implementation of information exchange between competitors behavior by the anti-monopoly enforcement authority official investigation and dealt with are mostly cases involving a fixed price,and in this case,the exchange of information between competitors behavior is usually defined monopoly agreements among competitors to law enforcement agencies as evidence and collaborative behavior.In view of this,it is necessary for our country to establish the anti-monopoly regulation of the information exchange between competitors in the legislation,and to clarify the criterion of illegality of information exchange among competitors.For those behaviors that do not have serious market harm and can usually be corrected by the market itself,the practice experience of the United States and the European Union can be used to make exceptions and apply the rules of safe harbor.At the same time,it is necessary to improve the coordination mechanism between competitors' information exchange and anti-monopoly law enforcement,so as to avoid the omission of law enforcement and the lack of professional law enforcement.