On The Leniency Program In The Anti-monopoly Law

Cartel (horizontal restriction of competition) is the conspiracy activity taken by competitive enterprises at the aim of limiting competition and the anti-monopoly laws in many countries put high pressure on the illegal activity to prohibit it. To enhance the efficiency of investigating the monopoly behavior, Leniency Program was founded by America in 1978 and adopted by many countries including China. However, our regulations are full of principles and lack of operability, which cause problems in practice. Therefore, the study is carried out with purpose of improving Leniency Program by means of historical, contrast and interdisciplinary analysis to try to study theory system and the running mechanism in the country and abroad systematically. Firstly, the study indicates the program’s meaning, development history and scope of application from the perspectives of the forms of monopoly, liability and application terms. Secondly, it generates that the program accords with the major value purposes of justice, fairness and efficiency from the perspective of jurisprudence analysis, shows the availability in economy by analyzing through prisoner’s dilemma and on sociology, it is concluded that the program accords with social interest. Thirdly, based on other countries’experience, it’s concluded rules and outside legal support which guarantees the program to work well. The valuable rules include attractive exempt treatments, predictable consequences and convenient procedures. The outside legal supports include the high rate of being investigated, strict liabilities and mature system of secrecy. Lastly, combined with the situation of increasing Cartel in China, it points out the necessity of its foundation and analyzes the flaws in regulations and outside legal supports. Focusing on the limitations, the thesis proposes standards of specialization for enlarging subjects, time of application, evidence and cooperation and it also suggests the measures in outside law supports to promote the efficiency of our country’s anti-monopoly law enforcement.