CHINA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Yi Xue, Zhong Lun
From Rules to Remedies: China’s Antitrust Litigation Enters an Implementation Phase Overview China’s antitrust litigation entered a new phase in 2025. The principal development was not another wholesale change to the Anti-Monopoly Law (AML) but the transition from rule-making to implementation. The Judicial Interpretation on Several Issues Concern - ing the Application of Law in the Trial of Civil Disputes over Monopolistic Conduct (the “2024 Judicial Inter - pretation”), promulgated by the Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China (the “Supreme People’s Court”), supplied a more usable framework for standing, proof, causation and damages. The cas - es disclosed in 2025 and the first half of 2026 show courts beginning to apply that framework across private damages actions, judicial review of antitrust enforcement, challenges to administrative monopo - lies and disputes concerning digital platforms. At the same time, procuratorates are becoming a more visi - ble claimant through antitrust public-interest litigation. The direction is therefore best described as institu - tional broadening rather than simple growth in case numbers. According to the Supreme People’s Court’s 2026 work report, Chinese courts found monopoly conduct in 27 cases in 2025, compared with 31 cases reported for 2024. The modest reduction should not be read as retreat. The more important change lies in the range of routes through which competition ques - tions now reach a court: standalone and follow-on civil claims, administrative challenges to penalties, actions against public authorities, merger-review litigation and procuratorial public-interest cases. The resulting sys - tem is more plural, but also more dependent on care - ful co-ordination between courts, enforcement agen - cies and procuratorates. Legislative development: safe harbour rule for vertical monopoly agreements The safe harbour rule for vertical monopoly agree - ments, first statutorily established under the 2022 revised AML, remained merely a principled provi - sion with no practical enforceability for years, as the absence of quantitative thresholds and operational guidelines left significant regulatory ambiguity for market compliance.
To address this gap, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) issued the amended Provisions on Prohibition of Monopoly Agreements in December 2025, set to take effect on 1 February 2026. The amendment fully operationalises the safe harbour mechanism with detailed, tiered substantive criteria and procedural rules. First, it sets differenti - ated exemption thresholds aligned with the anti-com - petitive risk level of different vertical restraints. For high-risk resale price maintenance (RPM) agreements – including fixed resale prices and minimum resale price restrictions – safe harbour protection applies only if two cumulative conditions are met through - out the full term of the agreement: both the operator and its counterparty hold a market share of less than 5% in the relevant market each year, and the annual turnover of the goods covered by the agreement stays below CNY100 million. For lower-risk non-price verti - cal restraints (such as territorial restrictions, custom - er allocation and exclusive dealing), the threshold is relaxed to a 15% market share cap for both parties, with no additional turnover requirement. Notably, eligibility applies only when all parties to the vertical agreement satisfy the relevant thresholds; the rule cannot be invoked if any party fails to meet the standard. Where an operator has multiple counter - parties in the same relevant market, the market share and turnover of all counterparties must be aggregated for assessment. The rule also functions as a rebutta - ble exemption rather than absolute protection: even if thresholds are met, safe harbour treatment will be denied if there is evidence proving the agreement eliminates or restricts market competition. On the pro - cedural side, operators bear the full burden of prov - ing eligibility by submitting supporting materials. Upon verification, antitrust authorities will dismiss unfiled cases or terminate ongoing investigations for eligible agreements, and may resume proceedings if submit - ted information is found to be false or incomplete, or if material facts change. As a critical refinement of China’s antitrust institution - al framework, the operationalised safe harbour rule draws clear compliance boundaries for market enti - ties, particularly reducing regulatory uncertainty and compliance costs for small and medium-sized enter - prises. It unifies national law enforcement standards,
77 A NTITRUST LI T IGATI O N 2026
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