Striking a proper balance between unilateral exercise of intellectual property rights on the one hand and competition rules on the other hand is not an easy exercise. The right owners’ unilateral behaviour of refusal to license is one such delicate issue, particularly for China, considering that it has not been clarif ied within existing competition rules how to assess a right owner’s specif ic unilateral practices. In a series of cases, the EU courts have established the exceptional circumstances in which the right owners’ refusal conduct might be considered as an infringement of EU competition rules. In general, Chinese competition law has been modelled after the EU competition rules. This book firstly examines the EU approaches on dominant undertakings’ refusal to license intellectual property rights and the follow-on pricing issue, and then explores to what extent the EU model could contribute to China’s anti-monopoly practice.

Management and legal counsel of foreign companies operating in China as well as those outside China with Chinese business desperately need to keep up with the fast-paced antitrust developments in the most dynamic market in the world. The author of this book, Becky Koblitz, is a seasoned antitrust lawyer for a major U.S. law firm in Beijing. She has decades of legal experience as a prosecutor at the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as in-house counsel for a German subsidiary of a major American real estate development company and as a lawyer at law firms globally. Her rich experience in the U.S., Europe and China, now often regarded as the three centers of global antitrust, makes her the perfect candidate to write a book on China's antitrust development. Her book is a quick read that tells what there is to know about China's antitrust enforcement and includes practical advice and examples for the various aspects of antitrust: dealing with competitors, dealing within the supply chain, mergers, etc. She writes in a straight-forward language such that non-antitrust lawyers can get beyond stock phrases like "illicit price coordination," "abuse of dominance," or "unilateral effect." Her book is a valuable and practical "cookbook" for antitrust compliance training and beyond. Another feature of the book is that it provides both legal and economic perspectives on antitrust analysis in China, which is important given that economic analysis is increasingly adopted by China's antitrust agencies and the Chinese courts. Thus understanding the logic and methodology behind economic analysis as applied to Chinese cases is key to conducting proper antitrust legal analysis that is tailored to the Chinese context. To write a book on the burgeoning antitrust enforcement and practice for the constantly evolving Chinese market is a real challenge. The trick, and it is not as easy as you would think, is to write simple declarative sentences, understandable to the antitrust layman, and at the same time not lose the rigor of antitrust analysis. I think this relatively short book is a remarkable achievement in meeting such a challenge, but I invite you to judge for yourself.

The China Anti-Monopoly Law (AML), which became effective August 1, 2008, is the first comprehensive competition law enacted by China. The AML prohibits a broad array of agreements between competitors and commercial counterparties, as well as competitive conduct by single firms that may harm the competitive process. In addition, it establishes a mandatory administrative review procedure for mergers and acquisitions between companies meeting certain sales thresholds, globally or in China. Beyond these fundamental provisions, the AML prohibits certain types of administrative abuses believed to be prevalent in China and establishes a complex set of administrative agencies with broad powers to enforce the law. Anti-Monopoly Law and Practice in China is the first comprehensive treatment of the AML and the practice of antitrust law under this new system. Each chapter on the substantive provisions of the law includes practical advice on approaches to meeting the challenge of complying with the law's requirements, including analysis of likely interpretations and applications of the AML based on precedents in related economic laws and actions by other administrative agencies. Where policy choices are uncertain, the text will explore probable developments in China based on comparable applications of competition laws in other jurisdictions.