20 - The Present Situation and Improvement Direction of the Sanction System in China’s Anti-monopoly Law

Summary

The sanction system of China’s anti-monopoly law mainly comprises administrative penalty and civil damages compensation, with administrative penalty as the core sanction method. The mode of administrative penalty combining confiscation of illegal income and fines established in the Anti-monopoly Law is not ideal in practice. Confiscation of illegal income is often absent, which greatly affects the deterrent capacity of anti-monopoly sanctions. At the same time, imposing fines is not a sufficient deterrent on its own. To solve the predicament, in the revision of the Anti-Monopoly Law it is proposed to cancel confiscation of illegal income and learn from the internationally mainstream anti-monopoly administrative punishment mode by integrating the function of confiscation of illegal income in the form of fines, that is, replacing it with the fines-oriented anti-monopoly administrative punishment model, in order to make punishment more certain. In addition, China should reform the anti-monopoly law fine system in order to increase deterrence, including clarifying the meaning of “sales”, abolishing minimum fines of 1%, and considering civil damages as a mitigating factor for fines.