China Court Dismisses First Anti-monopoly Case. That Figures.
Xinhua story out today on how "The No. 1 Intermediate People's Court of Beijing on Thursday rejected an anti-monopoly case considered the first of its kind in China." (h/t to Zhongguofalu) The court dismissed the case on "procedural" grounds. It appears the ruling was based on the plaintiffs' having delayed their filing, even though the alleged wrongdoing continues.
Though it is very difficult to piece together a Chinese court decision from an English language article in a Chinese newspaper, I am still not surprised by the result. I am not surprised by the result simply because I simply do not believe China's courts are ready for antitrust cases and their response to this will be to dismiss them on whatever grounds they can find.
We will hunt down the Chinese language decision on this case and will report back on it if it presents anything new.
http://www.chinalawblog.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-t.cgi/2815
China Court Dismisses First Anti-monopoly Case. That Figures.:
Comments
The section involved here was Chapter V, Abuse of Administrative Power to Eliminate or Restrict Competition, which is as far as I can tell, extremely novel since is outlaws the ability of a government agency to rule in an anti-competitive manner.
There is no analogous provision that I know of in US law, and certainly not in anti-trust law. The closest thing that I know of is the dormant commerce clause, but that applies only to states. Certainly, you cannot in the United States sue a federal agency for restricting competition under the Sherman Antitrust Act, and it is not obvious to me how you would go about suing a Federal administrative agency for making a decision that restricts competition.
Posted by: Twofish | September 8, 2008 2:59 PM