Research On Issues Of China’s Consumer Antitrust Civil Litigation

The paper is to examine our antitrust civil litigation system from the perspective of consumers, focusing on the issues that hinder the development of China’s consumer antitrust civil litigation. And on the basis, put forward strategies, with the intention to create a favorable institutional environment for consumers to file.The paper starts from specific cases, with a visual display of the status of China’s consumer antitrust civil litigation. On the basis, it further analyzes the institutional environment facing by consumer antitrust civil litigation, which leads to the main issue of the paper. The reason why consumer antitrust civil litigation develops so slowly is that the existing system has problems, that is, a serious lack of incentive mechanisms. For example, the qualification of indirect consumer as a plaintiff, the consumers’ burden of proof and litigation, the actual compensation system and the defects of the Representative litigation system. All of these are the obstacles that hinder the development of China’s consumer antitrust civil litigation.The second chapter introduces the basic theory of consumer antitrust civil litigation. The paper analyzes the legal characteristics and the relationships between consumer antitrust civil litigation and other litigation filed by consumers, as well as the private and public enforcement of antitrust law. Then the paper analyzes the necessity of consumer antitrust civil litigation from the law and economics, jurisprudence and Economic Law.The third chapter focuses on the analysis of the institutional convergence in the area of consumer protection between antitrust law and consumer protection law. Antitrust law is focused on the indirect protection of consumers, which is not conducive to safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of consumers. Consumer protection law is the concentrated reflection of the direct protection of consumers, but for special tort, the Consumer Protection Law is lack of pertinence and effectiveness. Therefore, we should promote the convergence between the antitrust law and the consumer protection law, by the means of concept translation of antitrust law, establishment of consumer incentives and the group litigation and so on.The fourth chapter introduces the outside experiences of the consumer antitrust civil litigation including United States, Germany and Japan. The consumer antitrust litigation incentive mechanism of United States is mature and perfect. The paper begins with a case and discusses the powerful incentives and specific performance of the consumer antitrust civil litigation. In German, the private enforcement of antitrust law has developed rapidly in recent years, and created a lot of distinctive incentives. Such as "Impact Standard", "binding rules", "pre-judgment interest system" and so on. In Japan, the Fair Trade Commission is the center of antitrust private enforcement, which promotes and assists the consumer antitrust civil litigation.The fifth chapter is aimed at recommendations for legislation. Echoing the questions raised by the first chapter, the paper is purposed to create a good institutional environment in order to better safeguard the interests of consumers from the qualification for plaintiff, the burden of proof and litigation, the damages as well as group litigation.The key point of the paper is to improve the incentives of consumer antitrust civil litigation and strengthen the direct protection of consumers. Therefore, we should affirm the suability of the indirect damage and administrative antitrust. In terms of proof, the "pretrial discovery procedures", " binding rules " as well as the system of expert witness provide great convenience for consumers. Further, we can reverse the burden of proof to reduce the burden of consumers. Meantime we should establish special rules of litigation costs, which integrates the advantages of the "one-way cost of litigation rules" and the "discretionary expense of litigation rules". In damages, the discretionary compensation for damage is suitable for our country. Finally, in the group litigation, the class action system has its advantages, but also has its complexity, and now the conditions of class action system are not met, we can first permit the consumption Association and other associations to file lawsuits on behalf of the victims.The result of the paper is the awareness of the key issues and recommendations of incentives on the basis, which is practical and operable. Overall, the study of private enforcement of antitrust law is quite mature, the originality of the paper is to recognize the antitrust litigation from the consumer’s point of view, and reflect the reason why it is more difficult and rare for consumers as plaintiff than others.When it comes to innovation, the reflection on antitrust civil litigation system from the perspective of consumers is novel. Previous studies focus on private enforcement of antitrust law or civil litigation as a whole. The paper is strongly aware of the particularity of consumers. Compared to enterprises or other commercial body, consumers are in an absolutely vulnerable position. Thus the special protection for consumers is essential when designing the system. At the same time, the large number of damaged consumers may have a enormous impact and play a great role in terms of antitrust deterrence. In addition, raising the awareness of consumer rights is also help to form a good competitive culture.The inadequacies of this paper is that the analysis and argument are not enough. Meanwhile, although consumers as plaintiff is unique, but it still has a lot of things in common with general antitrust civil litigation. How to highlight the unique value of consumer antitrust civil litigation needs to be improved.