Not long ago, the State Administration for Market Regulation released the first batch of typical cases of anti monopoly law enforcement actions in the field of people's livelihood in 2023, involving industries such as pharmaceuticals, public utilities, and insurance, including 11 market monopoly cases and 2 cases of abusing administrative power to exclude and restrict competition. Some enterprises were issued a "fine" of 100 million yuan. Since the beginning of this year, the national market supervision system has launched a special action on antitrust law enforcement in the field of people's livelihood, conveying a clear signal of resolutely stopping monopolistic behavior that infringes on the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises and the public. What are the characteristics of the typical cases released this time? What are the considerations for carrying out special anti monopoly law enforcement actions in the field of people's livelihood? How to break the administrative monopoly in the field of people's livelihood? Regarding the above issues, the reporter interviewed Xu Xinjian, the antitrust director of the State Administration of Market Regulation. The natural monopoly nature of the industry and multi link operation have become common causes of monopolistic behavior in public utilities. Question: The 13 typical cases announced this time include fields such as public utilities and insurance. What are the product characteristics and market structure of public utilities? Why is monopolistic behavior prone to occur? Xu Xinjian: In the public utility industry, there are three reasons that lead to monopolies. One is the natural monopoly attribute of the industry. Public utilities such as water, electricity, and heat provide services based on pipeline networks, which have strong regional characteristics. By signing franchise agreements with the government and other means, they are usually the only enterprises in the local industry that use pipeline networks for related business activities, and have a natural monopoly attribute. Due to the lack of competitive constraints, public enterprises are prone to abuse their dominant market position and other behaviors by leveraging their monopoly position. The second is the monopoly risk of multi link operation. In addition to operating in natural monopolies such as water supply, power supply, gas supply, and heating, public enterprises generally carry out business in competitive links related to their main business, such as engineering installation. If their awareness of antitrust compliance is not strong, they are prone to extending their monopoly advantages to competitive links and touching the red line of antitrust laws. The third is the strong profit motivation of public enterprises. The public utility industry generally has the characteristics of high investment costs and long payback cycles, coupled with the significant pressure of rising operating costs in recent years, which enhances the motivation for public utility enterprises to profit through other businesses such as engineering installation, accessory sales, value-added services, etc. The State Administration for Market Regulation has designated public utilities as a key area of antitrust law enforcement, investigating a total of 29 monopoly cases in the office utility industry, with a fine of 176 million yuan. At the same time, we will continue to improve the legal system and formulate and revise anti monopoly supporting regulations and guidelines such as the "Provisions on Prohibiting Monopoly Agreements" and the "Provisions on Prohibiting the Abuse of Market Dominant Position"; Strengthen communication and coordination with industry regulatory authorities, promote synergy and linkage between industry regulation and competition regulation, strengthen source governance, and work together to improve regulatory efficiency. Some administrative agencies have improperly intervened in the market, and there is still a path dependence of "batch management" in the management of the new business economy. Q: What are the characteristics of the two cases of abusing administrative power to exclude and restrict competition announced this time? Xu Xinjian: From an industry perspective, these two cases respectively involve the fields of public utilities and transportation, which are closely related to the lives of the people; From the perspective of the involved parties, all involve departments under the municipal government; From the perspective of the types of behaviors involved in the case, they all involve the abuse of administrative power limitations or disguised limitations
Edit：Wang Chen Responsible editor：Jia Jia
Source：www.ccdi.gov.cn
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