The Study Of Resale Price Maintenance Regulated By Anti-monopoly Law

Antitrust enforcement authorities have never stopped their investigation into the RPM activities after the punishment on Kweichow Mao-Tai Sales Co.,Ltd.and Yibin Wuliangye Liquor Sales Co.,Ltd.in Feb,2013 and subsequently investigated and penalized the milk powder corporations and automotive corporations who had conducted RPM activities.On 1st Aug,2013,Shanghai High People’s Court announced the written judgement on the Johnson case which is the first case concerning vertical monopoly agreements and then have aroused much attention.It makes sense that China has attached more and more importance to supervision on RPM activities.However,it’s not difficult to conclude that some problems still remain on how to distinguish monopoly agreements among the RPM agreements according to the Anti-monopoly Law when we observe these RPM cases.RPM agreements are a kind of vertical restrictive agreements which usually have complex competition effect,whereas,the regulations on the Anti-monopoly Law are very ambiguous and unspecific.As a consequence,the courts and the enforcement authorities always find it difficult to deal with these cases without reasonable and unanimous guidelines which results in the divergence of principle rules applied to stipulate RPM between the courts and the anti-monopoly enforcement authorities.What’s more,this situation above is likely to lower the examination efficiency and break the impartiality of the Anti-monopoly Law.Therefore,China may modify the relevant regulations of Anti-monopoly Law in order to explicitly establish the rule of reason,and may promulgate Vertical Restraints Guide which will provide many more specific instructions on RPM case examinations.This paper is consisted of four Parts:First,Part 1 introduces the basic theories about anti-monopoly regulation on RPM,including the concept,the classification and the characteristics of RPM from the perspective of Anti-monopoly Law.In addition,this part also explain why Anti-monopoly law restricts the RPM activities.All above of this part is the fundamental of this paper.Second,Part 2 relates and analyses the current situation and troubles on China’s supervision on RPM activities.This part introduces the current Anti-monopoly Law regulations on RPM of China and discusses the legal interpretation troubles.In addition,this part also points out the problem of RPM legal practice in China including the difference of the principle rules and the uncertainty of the examination standards by analyzing the typical cases processed by the courts and the enforcement authorities.Third,as far as the questions raised in Part 2,Part 3 make some theoretical analysis in order to find the answer.This part mainly tries to make out what is the difference between legal RPM agreements and illegal RPM agreements.In the other words,This part intend to find which conditions must be satisfied when a RPM agreement turns out to be a monopoly agreement.Considering the direct goal of Anti-monopoly Law is to protect competitions,whether a RPM agreement shall be stipulated is determined by its competition effects.Thankfully,economics theories provided an analytical method for the Anti-monopoly Law regulation on RPM,so I distinguish some situations where the RPM shall be punished and where shall not be.Besides,this part also regards market structure conditions as the premise of the anti-competition effect of the RPMForth,Part 4 make some suggestions on modifications of the current anti-monopoly law regulations relevant to RPM aiming at the problems raised above.One suggestion is that China may modify the Anti-monopoly Law regulations on RPM with a reason of rule,and the other one is the promulgation of the Vertical Restraints Guide with more reasonable and specific RPM rules in order to improve the examination efficiency and ensure the impartial judgements.