The Antitrust Regulation Of Behaviors Of Restriction Competition By Insurance Association

On August I,2008, after13years of twists and turns, the Anti-monopoly Law, which has long been known as "economic constitution" came into effect. The implementation of the Anti-monopoly Law is of great significance for the perfection of our socialist market economy. However, soon after the promulgation of the Anti-monopoly Law, the Insurance Association of Chongqing Municipality carried out the standardized rates, followed by the price fixing case, then, the Insurance Association of Hangzhou arbitrarily increased the insurance premiums. From then on, people started to pay close attention to the Trade Association, especially the Insurance Association, which made use of its status and applied the antitrust regulations to restrict competition. Finally, both of the two monopolistic cases of the Insurance Association ended up with a way of reconciliation, whereas, the implementation of the Anti-monopoly Law on restricting competition in the Insurance Association has become a generally thinking issue. In view of this, I select this issue to do some research.This article is divided into five parts:In the first part of my article, the clarification of basic concept of the Insurance Association is introduced. This article is started from different concepts and features of the Trade Association in the academic circle, not only clarifying basic concepts and fundamental characteristics of the Insurance Association in our country, but also analyzing the particularities of our country’s Insurance Association:administrative, public welfare, product homogenization, functional autonomy and other features. In the end, I give an analysis and illustration of the dual relationship between the Insurance Association and competition.The second part of my article analyzes types of restrictive competition performed by the Insurance Association. In our country, the Insurance Association may be suspected of being involved in violating Anti-monopoly Law and restricting competition. The behaviours of restricting competition mainly include:fixed price in the form of "self-discipline price", platform of information exchange, industrial standards and standardized insurance policies, barriers of market access, and administrative monopoly behaviour of carving up the market. The five kinds of restrictive competition of the Insurance Association are more complicated and do greater harm to the market competition, relative to some certain enterprises.Tn the third part of my article, I aim at drawing lessons from foreign Insurance Association through introducing the practice of antitrust regulations of foreign Insurance Association. First of all, this article introduces two major principles of illegality that defined internationally. Then, it introduces some practices of the Insurance Association of the United States, the European Union and Japan respectively in regulations of restrictive competition. In the end, some enlightenments should be given to our country.The fourth part presents the current situation of regulations on restrictive competition in the Insurance Association of China. This article is proceeded from the legislative status quo of the Insurance Association of China and the current situation of regulations of restrictive competition in the Insurance Association of China, analyzing the problems in the regulations of restrictive competition in the Insurance Association in our country. Those problems contain:the severe insufficiency of legislation, the fuzziness and ambiguity of functions and responsibilities of the Insurance Association, the imperfection of legal systems of the Anti-monopoly Law in liability system and law enforcement system, the improper industrial supervision and so forth.In the fifth part of my article, I put forward some perfect proposals of antitrust regulations on restrictive competition in the Insurance Association in our country. According to the status quo and existing problems of regulations on restrictive competition in the Insurance Association in our country, I bring up some proposals, including strengthening the corresponding legislation of the Insurance Association in China, continuing to clarify the basic subject system, status and liability system of the Insurance Association; continuously improving the law enforcement agencies of legal systems of the Anti-monopoly Law in our country, reinforcing the supervisions between industries and other proposals.