On The Anti-monopoly Law Of Franchise

Franchise has been proved to be a kind of business and trade operation suited to the market-oriented economy's scale, globalization and optimization of resources' distribution. It is related to many law issues, among which the more important one is competition law (mainly anti-monopoly law) because franchise is very similar to monopoly. In franchise, a franchisor (or franchise right owner) offers a franchisee his own trade mark, corporate name, patent or exclusive technology in the form of contract. This involves transference of intellectual property, right of selling goods, technology and skills. Yet intellectual property's legal monopolization is a decisive factor of franchisor's right in restricting franchisee's activities in their contract to some extent. At the same time, franchise also involves three parties of franchisor, franchisee, and other relevant competitors and includes competitive relation in terms of the horizontal and vertical levels. Besides, a franchisor tends to use his advantages to abuse his rights, restricting competition against the anti-monopoly law such as tied selling, resale price maintenance and regional restrictions, when he signs a contract with a franchisor. Therefore, though a franchisor's right of legal monopoly should be protected, legislations and regulations relevant to a franchisor's behaviors of restricting competition by means of abusing his right should be made in anti-monopoly law. This is the most complicated issue in franchise.Through the analysis of behaviors of restricting competition that may occur in franchise, the thesis aims at making a comparative study of legislations and regulations in anti-monopoly law in west countries such as US, EU, and Australia, and putting forward the writer's ideas in order to contribute to legislations and regulations in Chinese anti-monopoly law in franchise.The theme of this thesis is introduced by describing the development of franchise in all countries:The First Chapter: Distinguishing the differences between franchise and its related concepts and understanding franchise's innate characteristics by analysis of concepts of franchise in all countries.The Second Chapter: On the basis of analyzing particularity of behaviors of restricting competition in franchise, making a concrete analysis of several typical ones like tied selling, resale price maintenance and regional restrictions, and having a comprehensive comparison of legislations and regulations of those behaviors in every country's anti-monopoly law.The Third Chapter: Putting forward concepts of legislations and regulations of Chinese anti-monopoly law in franchise.