The Legal Regulating Of Vertical Price-Fixing Agreement In Automobile Market In China

Since the reform and opening up,China's auto market has rised rapidly.China's auto production and sales in the world for a long time,automobile industry has become a landmark industry in our country,holds up the development of national economy in China.At present,there are many brands in China's auto market,such as Chery,JAC in Anhui,Mercedes-Benz,Audi and so on.There are also Chinese-foreign joint venture brands such as Changan Ford and Shanghai GM.On the basis of great development of the "Twelve Five",China's automobile industry brand has shown a good momentum of development in the start of "Thirteen Five".Therefor,Car manufacturers value their car brand greatly.However,in order to get better development of their brand and maximize profits,some car manufacturers set some conditions for car dealers and strengthen the control of car dealers.But,for the car dealer,this behavior is not so fair,therefor the problem of a vertical price monopoly agreement in car market should be solved properly.Auto market vertical price-fixing agreement mainly can be divided into minimum resale price maintenance,maintain the highest resale price agreement and longitudinal recommended price.The formation of these price monopoly agreements has its specific reasons.First,the "car brand sales management implementation measures" has been implemented in China for more than ten years,it has far-reaching impact on China's auto market,but there are some contradictions with China's"Anti-monopoly Law".Second,the automobile 4s distribution system of long-term has existed for many years.In this mode,car manufacturers must maintain its distribution system,at the same time,there is a dependency relationship between car manufacturers and auto dealers.Third,the price monopoly agreements is useful for preventing free riding.At present,the vertical regulation of the automobile market price monopoly agreement mainly based on "anti-monopoly law","price law","anti-price monopoly provisions",but the maneuverability of regulations is not strong.In addition,the National Development and Reform Commission draft the "antitrust guidelines on the automotive industry" and open to the community to solicit opinions in the automotive market vertical price monopoly Agreement,but it has yet to be promulgated.From the regulation of the status quo and anti-monopoly case of the automotive industry,it is not difficult to find there are some problems in China's regulation about the automotive market vertical price monopoly agreement.As the most important automobile market in the world,it is helpful to regulate the behavior of the automobile manufacturers in order to realize the sustainable development of the automobile market and perfect the anti-monopoly legislation of our country.First of all,aiming at these problems of "Administration of Automobile Brand Sales Implementing Procedures",it is important to guarantee the equal rights of car dealers and car manufacturers to plead and develop a variety of distribution model.Secondly,in order to solve the problem of the law regulation of the vertical market price monopoly agreement,we should clarify the illegal identification standards of the vertical price monopoly agreement of the automobile market,increase the forensic way of the anti-monopoly law enforcement agencies,the administrative fines and penalties,and protect the rights of car manufacturers.Third,it is necessary to improve the burden of proof,the introduction of three times of the punitive damages.Finally,it is significant to enhance the automotive industry self-regulatory norms of supervision and regulate the behavior of the automotive industry associations to strength automotive industry self-regulation.