The Export Cartel System Under The Anti-Trust Law

Export cartel bears the general characteristic of cartel, however, it is exempted from the application of Anti-trust Law in many countries. The reason of such exemption is that even though export cartel may harm the interest of the import countries, export cartel will foster the export industry of the export country and enhance its competitiveness in the international market, in addition, it has little negative influence on the domestic competition and consumer's interest of the export country. Exemption of export cartel has caused great concern among the scholars and the countries as a protectionism policy. On the other side, although export cartel is exempted by the export country, the import country always exercises jurisdiction over the export cartel, basing on the "effect doctrine" theory, which leads to the conflict between the two countries. Thus export cartel becomes an important topic in establishing a cooperation system among countries with regard to Anti-trust Law. For China, export cartel is also a problem China encounters currently, whether to exempt export cartel or not, what attitude shall China take in the negotiation in this regard, and how to avoid Chinese export enterprises to be sued before foreign court for violation of local Anti-trust Law again etc, all the problems make export cartel a hot topic to be discussed. Therefore, this paper hereof is written to do a research on the export cartel exemption, analyze the positive and negative side of such exemption. And based on the analysis above, the author intends to put forward some personal opinions on how to handle the foregoing problems. This article is divided to three chapters. The first chapter is a general introduction of export cartel exemption, in which, you may find the definition of export cartel, the current export cartel exemption in different countries, including whether to exempt export cartel or not, the provisions of the law which allows such exemption. After that the author will make a summary on the type of export cartel exemption, the substantive and procedural requirement for applying exemption. In this chapter, you may also find how import country exercises its jurisdiction over the export cartel from foreign countries. Under chapter two, we will first have an overview on the arguments for and against the exemption respectively, and then the author will bring forward and reason her opinion that the country's interest is the reason behind the exemption and international cooperation is the only way to settle the conflict caused by export cartel. On the basis of the analysis above, the author, in Chapter Three, represents her view that export cartel shall be exempted under the Anti-trust Law of PRC and further advances some suggestions on the improvement of the law. In the ending, the author gives some proposals on how to restrict export cartel from foreign countries and the measures the Chinese export companies shall take in case of being claimed for export cartel in foreign countries.