Introduction

Abstract

The year 2007 marked an important milestone in China’s antitrust legislation. After more than 13 years of drafting, the first comprehensive competition law, the Anti-Monopoly Law (“AML”), was promulgated on 30 August 2007 and entered into force one year later on 1 August 2008. The AML introduced to China a legal framework to prevent and restrict monopolistic conducts that affect competition in the Chinese market, with provisions targeted against monopoly agreements, abuse of market dominance, anticompetitive concentrations of business operators, and abuse of administrative power to eliminate or restrict competition. Out of these four areas, this thesis will focus on the set of rules applicable to “concentrations of business operators”, which is internationally commonly referred to as the “merger control” regime, and evaluate its practical application by the competent authority, the Ministry of Commerce (“MOFCOM”).