Legal Regulation Of Predatory Pricing Behavior Of E-commerce Platforms

China’s competition legal system needs to adapt to the development of platform economy under the Internet big data.Predatory pricing behavior has been common in the field of e-commerce platforms.The endless price war strategies of e-commerce platforms make the market competitive environment more unreasonable,and the rights and interests of consumers can not be guaranteed.Network externalities,non neutral price structure,multilateral dependence and complementarity are the main characteristics of e-commerce platforms.With regard to the implementation of predatory pricing on e-commerce platforms,China’s current legislation is characterized by a small number,scattered and macro.When determining the predatory pricing of e-commerce platforms,factors such as relevant markets,market dominance,low price sales,loss compensation and justifications should be considered.When analyzing the relevant markets,we can analyze the markets on both sides of the e-commerce platform separately,and then use the demand substitution analysis method to define the relevant markets;We should reduce the dependence on market share and pay attention to non market share factors to determine the dominant position of the main body.Low price sales shall be calculated by the average variable cost,which refers to the cost of specific enterprises,including the average cost of raw materials,marketing,research input,etc.,rather than the average variable cost of the entire industry.The e-commerce platform can not only raise prices in the later period to make up for the losses caused during the low price period,but also recover costs through cross subsidies between the e-commerce platform and the payment platform within the group.Therefore,the identification method of loss compensation of low price first and then price increase should keep pace with the times.As long as there is an act of selling below the cost price,it is illegal.It is not necessary to consider whether the price increase has been implemented after the competitor has been expelled.As long as the e-commerce platform with certain market power in the relevant market conducts low price sales,it can be identified as unfair competition without considering the subjective intention.In view of the current regulatory status of predatory pricing of e-commerce platforms in China,the following suggestions are put forward: first,define the definition and elements of predatory pricing behavior;Second,standardize the enforcement of predatory pricing;Third,increase the punishment of predatory pricing behavior.