On The Behavior Of Vertical Price Restrictions Antitrust Regulations

Competition is the source of the vitality of the market, is the precondition andguarantee of the great development of the market economy. However, in the currentmarket there are numerous restrictions or agreements to exclude competition, inwhich vertical price restriction is widely used and extremely secluded. According tothe current "anti-monopoly law", these agreements can only be regulated by theArticle14of the anti-monopoly law which is so simple and principled, and it isdifficult to make effective review and prohibited. Recently the result of "JohnsonResale Price Maintenance case" and the heavy penalties to the "limit order" of Moutaiand Wuliangye corporations from the national development and Reform Commissionattracted wide discussions. Not only the logic of the judicial authorities that judgingthe agreements is debatable, but also the standard of "the rule of reason" lacksstability and maneuverability, these lead to the cases of domestic Resale PriceMaintenance unpredictable. Therefore, this article view: In fact, it is not suitable forusing "the double rule of reason" or the "itself illegal principle" from the nationaldevelopment and Reform Commission to regulate the Resale Price Maintenance. Sothe government should use the "the strict rule of reason" based on the conditions ofour country, meanwhile support the system of analysis based on the market structuremodel. This paper will mainly discusses from four aspects:The first part discusses the theory of Resale Price Maintenance, throughanalyzing three elements including "vertical","price" and "limited", the beginning ofthe article defines the concept, scope and type of vertical price restriction. Thencomposed the Harvard School with the Chicago school research, we study the positiveand negative economic effect, so as to get a better understand of the Resale PriceMaintenance.The second part is devoted to describe the United States’ historical evolution of legal norms of Resale Price Maintenance and the analysis of the EC competition law,in order to referring to consideration of Chinese anti-monopoly law from the foreignlegislation mode through the comparative research.The third part mainly summarizes the principle that Chinese judicial authoritiesuse "anti-monopoly law" to regulate Resale Price Maintenance, through thecomparative study of "Johnson case" and "limit order of the winery case". Thenfurther propose the problems and constraints to "the rule of reason" that regulateResale Price Maintenance in our country now.The fourth part gives the suggestions to the existing problems for the situation inChina. Firstly, it affirmed that the "the rule of reason" correspond with the China’snational conditions, and put forward to the specific suggestions from the nationalpolicy, the specific standard, the conditions of exemption and judicial interpretation.