The Research On The Protection Of The Rights And Interests Of Consumers In Antitrust Law

Monopolistic behavior seriously infringes upon the consumer’s right to chooseand the right to fair trade, resulting in impairment of consumer welfare. As the"economic constitution ", protecting the interests of consumers is the proper meaningof the antitrust law.Consumer protection is the basic purpose of antitrust law,antitrust law is the ultimate expression of value, but also the concept of the publicinterest.The interests of consumers is also one of the legislative goals of AntitrustLaw of China.Regulation of monopoly agreements, abuse of dominant market position,concentration control, prohibiting administrative monopolies are the four pillars ofChina’s antitrust law. By prohibiting administrative monopoly and economicmonopoly, the goal of protection of consumer rights in antitrust law to be achieved.There are a lot of problems in the enforcement of Chinese Anti-trust Law, which resultin the insufficient of protection of consumers’ rights and interests. These problemsincludes as following: the improperly allocation of anti-monopoly executionauthorities which is not conducive to protection of consumers, the lack of consumerremedy measures in antitrust law, the imperfect liability provisions of the antitrustlaws and so on.Therefore, in order to protect consumers’ rights better, we should improve ourantitrust law system in the following ways. Firstly, for achieving the ultimate value ofAnti-trust Law, the allocation and authority of anti-monopoly execution authoritiesmust be in favor of protection of consumer rights. Secondly, we should constructanti-trust litigation system for consumers, awarding the plaintiff qualification toconsumers, especially for allowing consumers to bring private antitrust lawsuit, whichis not only could protect the consumers’ individual interest, but also could effectivelyimprove the public implementation of Anti-trust Law and maintain the public interest.Thirdly, we should improve the anti-trust liability system for protecting consumers’interest, which could compensate for the loss of consumers, as well as could behelpful to achieve the optimal level of deterrence to monopoly behaviors. Finally, weshould promote competition advocacy, and establish a favorable competitive culturesystem in favor of the interests of consumers.