Research On The Anti-monopoly Regulation Of Unfair High Price

Along with the rapid development of economy in recent years,the Anti-monopoly Law Enforcement Agency has increasingly strengthened the anti-trust probe and has made gratifying achievements.From the perspective of survey scope,it involves various fields,such as food,gold,science and technology,material industries and so on.Seen from the respondents of the survey,it not only includes domestic enterprises,especially the large-scale state-owned enterprises,but also the monopolistic behaviors of overseas companies.For example,China's National Development and Reform Commission(NDRC)for investigation and punishment to Qualcomm Incorporated(Qualcomm)attracted worldwide attention in 2015.The unfair high prices(or excessive price)of Qualcomm became the focus of attention.The smooth solution of this case reflects that China's antitrust enforcement is turning toward a new stage and gradually developing in a normalized trend.Nevertheless,we still have to admit that the implementation of our antitrust law has not been well conducted.There are many problems in the regulation of unfair high prices.The unfair high prices,which are harmful to consumers,are typical behaviors to abuse the dominant status of the market.It plays an important role in the development of antitrust system in our country.This paper starts with an antitrust investigation of Qualcomm and a contrastive analysis between two different models of unfair high price behavior in different countries,taking America and EU as examples.And from the historical background,competitive culture,market environment,judicial tradition and other aspects to analyze the causes of the differences,we can find that regulating unfair high prices through antitrust laws is a miniature of a country's competition policy.It contains the target and the value orientation of antitrust system,and positioning of government regulation and so on.Protecting the interests of consumers is one of the goals of the Anti-monopoly Law.So the unfair high prices,which can end up harming consumer's interests,should be regulated by the law.But so far as the status of the legal environment of our country,China's anti-monopoly legislation is not explicit enough about unfair high prices,which leads to many difficulties in the process of law enforcement.For example,how to identify the unfair high price behavior?Whether all the unfair high price should be regulated by the antitrust law?How to reinforce ex post legal remedies?How to prevent the unfair high price behaviors?In order to resolve these problems and maintain the order of market competition and protect the interests of consumers',the regulators must consummate the anti-monopoly law through the whole process of how the unfair high price behaviors are generated.Firstly,Anti-monopoly Law Enforcement Agency should guide enterprises to establish competition and compliance culture.The agency applies their knowledge about competition to develop the general framework of corporate compliance.The aim is to guide enterprises to establish its own anti-monopoly compliance program and promise not to enforce the unfair high prices.Secondly,in the process of investigating the unfair high price behaviors,it is necessary to refine the way of identifying the behaviors and regulate the application of exemption.In order to ensure the rigor of the legal regulation,we should comprehensively use the price-cost comparison method,product comparison method,space comparison method and time comparison method in mutual corroboration to confirm the unfair price behaviors.Of course,it is not all the behaviors should be regulated by the antitrust law.Taking into account the industrial policies,the protection of innovations,the advantages weighing more than the disadvantages to consumers,some unfair high price behaviors can be exempted.Finally,the agency should establish a legal remedy system which aims to achieve optimal deterrence.The role of antitrust law to regulate unfair high price behaviors is not only to prevent actions that are present in force,but also more importantly to deter other companies which may conduct the unfair high price behaviors.Therefore,it is important to establish a complete set of antitrust deterrent law system in gradient,which can connect and coordinate civil,administrative and criminal sanctions.