The State Administration for Market Regulation ('SAMR') released, on 27 June 2022, six draft anti-monopoly guidelines in order to implement the revised Anti-Monopoly Law. In particular, the draft guidelines are namely:

• Provisions on Prohibition of Monopoly Agreements (Draft for Comment) ('the Draft Guidelines on Monopoly Agreements');
• Regulations on the Review of the Concentration of Undertakings (Draft for Comment);
• Provisions on the Standards for Declaration of Concentration of Undertakings (Revised Draft for Comments);
• Provisions on Prohibition of Abuse of Dominant Market Position (Draft for Comment);
• Provisions on Suppressing Abuse of Administrative Power to Exclude and Restrict Competition (Draft for Comments); and
• Provisions on Prohibiting the Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights to Exclude and Restrict Competition (Draft for Comments).

With regards to the Draft Guidelines on Monopoly Agreements, clarification is provided on the scope of monopoly agreements, explaining that such agreements refer to agreements or decisions that exclude or restrict competition, and can be written, oral, or algorithmic. In addition, the Draft Guidelines on Monopoly Agreements stipulate that operators must not take advantage of data, algorithms, technologies, capital, and platform rules to engage in monopolistic behaviour prohibited by the Anti-Monopoly Law.

Public comments can be submitted via email until 27 July 2022.

You can access the draft guidelines, only available in Chinese, here.