China's Merger Control: Competition Assessment or Foreign Investment Screening?

KLRI Journal of Law and Legislation, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 37-72, 2022

38 Pages Posted: 24 Jun 2022

Date Written: May 31, 2022

Abstract

With its growing role in international trade and investment flows as an economic powerhouse, China has also become an important jurisdiction in terms of competition law enforcement. While application of the Anti-Monopoly Law to the commercial activities of the domestic companies has important repercussions for their market conduct abroad, the enforcement of the merger control directly affects multinational companies, which, due to their business presence in China, have to notify their mergers and acquisitions for clearance by China’s competition authorities. The present paper represents a study of China’s merger control enforcement record. It addresses the following research questions. Does merger control “with Chinese characteristics” follow the widely accepted competition harm theories? How does the public interest or other non-competition factors are considered in merger assessment? Is China’s merger control enforcement discriminatory in relation to foreign companies? The paper addresses these questions through a study of the Anti-Monopoly Law and secondary competition legislation, the institutional setting of China’s merger control and the merger decisions published by the competition authorities.

Keywords: China, competition law, merger control, merger remedies, mergers and acquisitions

JEL Classification: K21, K23, K33, L32, L40, L43, L44, L53, P21

Suggested Citation

Svetlicinii, Alexandr, China's Merger Control: Competition Assessment or Foreign Investment Screening? (May 31, 2022). KLRI Journal of Law and Legislation, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 37-72, 2022, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4141844

Alexandr Svetlicinii (Contact Author)

University of Macau - Faculty of Law ( email )

Macau

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