CHINA Law and Practice Contributed by: Yi Xue, Zhong Lun
hear the appeals of the civil monopoly cases whose first-instance trial has been concluded.
or restrict competition, with big-data supervision models widely deployed to identify concealed monopoly leads. • Expanding and diversifying litigation categories – the scope of anti-monopoly litigation has expand - ed well beyond traditional civil damage claims. Administrative litigation challenging anti-monopoly penalty decisions and concentration of undertak - ings review rulings has seen notable growth: the Beijing Intellectual Property Court issued its ruling in China’s first judicial review case involving a con - centration of undertakings decision in March 2025. Litigation against administrative monopoly conduct has also risen, with the SPC rendering its first final judgment upholding an administrative monopoly finding in the shared e-bike case in 2025. • Growing adoption as a strategic tool for com - mercial competition – market participants increas - ingly resort to anti-monopoly litigation to counter competitors’ restrictive practices, seek damages for losses caused by monopolistic conduct, or challenge unfavourable merger review decisions. Driven by rising corporate compliance awareness and demand for risk mitigation, anti-monopoly litigation has become a conventional instrument in market competition dynamics. • Deepened enforcement-judicial co-ordination with refined evidence rules – the Antitrust Judicial Inter - pretation explicitly provides that effective SAMR penalty decisions shall be presumed to establish relevant facts in follow-up civil lawsuits, substan - tially reducing plaintiffs’ burden of proof. The 2025 SPC model cases further demonstrate that courts conduct judicial review of enforcement decisions while upholding lawful anti-monopoly enforcement efforts, forming a synergistic governance frame - work.
13. Looking Forward 13.1 Legislative Trends and Other Developments
Propelled by refined judicial rules and deepened co-ordination between law enforcement and judicial authorities, China’s anti-monopoly litigation regime has advanced toward clearer procedural standards and expanded substantive application since 2025. The core trends and developments are outlined below. • High concentration of cases in people’s livelihood- related sectors – anti-monopoly disputes are highly concentrated in key sectors affecting people’s livelihoods including active pharmaceutical ingredi - ents (APIs), building materials, shared mobility and public utilities, as evidenced by the five model anti- monopoly cases released by the SPC in Septem - ber 2025. Internet platforms, technology innovation fields, and administrative monopoly scenarios involving local market access barriers have also emerged as key priorities for judicial oversight. • Steady and rapid growth of anti-monopoly public interest litigation – according to the 2025 Pub - lic Interest Litigation Prosecution White Paper, procuratorial organs filed 31 public interest cases exclusively in the anti-monopoly domain in 2025, marking a 93.8% year-on-year increase and rank - ing it among the fastest-growing categories of pub - lic interest litigation. The case scope covers both civil public interest litigation (eg, abuse of market dominance in pharmaceutical and public welfare sectors) and administrative public interest litigation targeting unlawful administrative acts that exclude
75 A NTITRUST LI T IGATI O N 2026
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