A great leap forward

On July 7 2009, the Anti-monopoly Commission of the State Council published the long-awaited final Guidelines on the Definition of Relevant Market (国务院反垄断委员会关于相关市场界定的指南). These are the first guidelines adopted by the Anti-monopoly Commission according to the PRC Anti-monopoly Law (AML) (中华人民共和国反垄断法). Compared with the first draft of the Guidelines circulated by the Ministry of Commerce (Mofcom) for public comments on January 5 2009, the finalised Guidelines have the same structure but contain some amendments, such as providing more details for the application of the Hypothetical Monopolist Test. Basically, the Guidelines will provide more certainty to companies in complying with the AML, such as carrying out mergers and acquisitions, or implementing pricing policies and arranging distribution networks which may affect the Chinese market.

Role and relevance of market definition