The Research Of The Anti-monopoly Issues Of Monophony Of Large Retailers In China

The retail industry is closely relating to the national economy, whose activeness and health degree directly affect the whole development and tendency of social economy and the living standard of each citizen. With the development of decades of years, the market concentration of larger retailers has been significantly increased. In particular, since China joined WTO and opened its retail industry to foreign retailers, the domestic retail industry has been further improved and is able to provide high-quality service to local customers. On the other hands, the advantageous status of large retailers in the market is more and more obvious, and their abuse of such advantageous status to restrict competition have caused quite intensive relationship with the suppliers, and the charge of slotting fees is the most typical monophony behavior. How to understand this phenomenon, what potential harm it may cause, and how to regulate this phenomenon better to build a healthier and more orderly competition environment, are the key issues to be solved. This paper tries to analyze and sum up the reasons of this phenomenon, analyze the feasibility to regulate such phenomenon on the basis of sorting out current legislation in China, and study the relevant legislation in foreign developed countries for references to our legislation. This paper consists of four chapters except for the introduction part.The Chapter One of this paper mainly sums up the forms and reasons of monophony by large retailers by sorting out and summarizing a large amount of existing research achievements, which start from the phenomenon itself. The mainly expressions of monophony by large retailers include overcharging slotting allowances to suppliers, requiring suppliers to make credit sales and stipulating all kinds of overbearing articles to suppliers. The reasons for above phenomena are excess capacity of suppliers, degree of concentration of retailers, and strong dependency on retailers by suppliers.The Chapter Two analyzes the possible consequences of monophony by large retailers from the perspective of anti-monopoly law and concludes that monophony by large retailers may have some positive effects to the suppliers, retailers and costumers, but the native effects should get more attention. Therefore, it’s necessary to regulate the monophony of larger retailers, and the phenomenon could be regulated by the concept of "vertical market dominant position" which has been included in current anti-monopoly law of China after analyzing the current related legislation in China.The Chapter Three researches the legislations of several developed countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Japan by using of comparative method, summarizes different legislation modes of these countries, and combs the related laws and regulations in China currently. We could conclude from the analysis of different legislations in these countries that the US mode has a relatively open attitude to the market, France legislation tens to use government intervention to influence the monophony of larger retailers, and the UK, Germany and Japan choose the middle way on this issue.In the Chapter Four, by comparing the legislation and regulation experience relating to the monophony of larger retailers of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Japan, and analyzing the current legislation and regulation system of China, we can find that the regulation in China is too general to be completed and is not well targeted. During the implementation, the multi-enforcement authorities caused confusion, and the punishment is insufficient to deter antitrust violation. Therefore, the implementation of monophony related legislation and regulation. To improve the regulatory effect, this article suggest that the draft Regulation of Fair Trading Management between the Retailers and Suppliers led by the Ministry of Commerce should specify the subject qualification regulated by the draft Regulation, add the market advantageous position into the regulation scope of anti-monopoly law and strengthen the punishment to violators to procure more effective regulatory effect.