On The Application Of Forgiveness System In Vertical Monopoly Agreements

In recent years,due to the rapid development of China's market economy and sharp increase of foreign trade, the economic field has showed flourishing prosperity.However, there are still some shortcomings. For example, in order to maximize the interests,some market participants built a "partnership alliance" relationship with other enterprises or individuals, reached a monopoly agreement, hoping to control the market through their joint actions, and thus forming a dominant position in the market.The monopoly agreement (or the cartel) has two basic features, namely concealment and transnationality. Concealment specifically manifested as a monopoly agreement that the two or more sides tacitly conceal the specific agreement. As a result, it is difficult for investigation agency to find the existence of a monopoly agreement, and even more difficult to obtain evidences. In addition, with the continuous progress of the world economic integration, there have been more transnational monopoly agreements, increasing the difficulty of fighting against monopoly agreements, which reflects the transnational feature of monopoly of the monopoly agreement. Under such a background and circumstances, the leniency policy finally came into being.The leniency policy encourages the operators who have reached and implemented the monopoly agreement to obtain different degrees of rewards by surrendering or informing, and the greatest reward is "pardon". The purpose of this system is to enable the monopolistic agreement participants to achieve internal disintegration, and ultimately achieve the effect of combating the monopoly agreement. It is derived from the United States, which can effectively prevent and restrict monopolistic behaviors. The leniency policy has played a great role in practice and has showed the its superiority. In view of this, different countries have introduced the system in making and revising the "anti-monopoly law" according to their practical situation, which has played an important role in the practice of anti-monopoly.Since the implementation of the "anti-monopoly law", China's efforts to combat monopolies have increased continually, in which the leniency policy played significant role in combat monopolistic behaviors including monopoly agreements.However, at present, our anti-monopoly law does not make clear the scope of application of the leniency policy. Specifically,in terms of applicable objects and the scope of application, there is no clear statement that the leniency policy is only applicable to a single agreement such as horizontal or vertical agreements, or can be adopted these two agreements. This is the key element for enforcement agencies to make correct application of the leniency policy. And it is critical for operators to get"forgiveness". These are important problems should clearly answered in practical cases. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to analyze the application status of leniency policy in our country, and point out that leniency policy should be used in vertical monopoly agreements. This thesis explores its scope of application and different opinions from professors, and clarify its the rationality and value according to practical cases. At the same time, conditions and ways to apply the leniency policy will be stated from unifying enforcement agency , strengthening enforcement and avoiding selective enforcement.