Antitrust Law Administrative Penalty System

The administrative penalty of anti-monopoly law is the most important and themost commonly used legal means to prevent and stop the violations. Its first purposeis to punish violations and the second is to prevent and reduce illegal activities.Article49of the Chinese Antimonopoly Law only stipulates the general terms, whichgives the Anti-Monopoly Law Enforcement Authority a large discretion. Ordinarilythe Enforcement Authority just announced the punishment of the case and the finecalculation method is not announced. To the public, the administrative penalty ofanti-monopoly law lacks transparency, predictability and deterrence. For example, theNational Development and Reform Commission fined Guizhou Maotai Co., Ltd. andSichuan Wuliangye Co., Ltd.449million yuan on February23,2013and finedShandong Weifang Shuntong Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. and Weifang HuaxinPharmaceutical Co., Ltd. a total of7.0296million yuan. In such cases, the NationalDevelopment and Reform Commission just announced the results of the punishmentsand the public do not know how they calculated the amount of the fine. What aboutthe penalty system in foreign competition law? Whether there should be a specificregulations or guideline which contains the factors and the calculations that theEnforcement Authority’s considered in determining the fine? How the China’sEnforcement Authority improve transparency and deterrence of the fine? In order toimplement the anti-monopoly law this paper also gives some advice. The content ofthis paper is divided into four parts.Part Ⅰ: Three cases leads to the main contents of this paper. Then the paperintroduces the China’s penalty system of anti-monopoly law and mainly discusses thenature, status as well as purpose of the administrative fine.Part Ⅱ: The content focuses on the calculation method of the fine of EUcompetition law and the U.S. anti-trust law and then comment on their rules.Part Ⅲ: Discuss the status quo and deficiencies of China’s anti-monopolyadministrative fines.Part Ⅳ: Give some suggestions on the improvement of China’s anti-monopoly law administrative penalty system.