The National Anti-Monopoly Administration was established on November 18, 2021, and has been officially listed for two weeks as of December 1. Since its establishment, the State Anti-Monopoly Administration has disclosed a total of 46 administrative punishment cases, referring to monopoly violations involving the fields of people's livelihood such as medicine and gas and the Internet industry.
The Beijing News Shell financial reporter combed the data and found that in the 46 administrative punishment decisions issued after the establishment of the National Anti-Monopoly Bureau, Tencent Holdings was fined a total of 6.5 million yuan, and Ali-related enterprises were fined a total of 6 million yuan.
42 companies were fined 60 times
The total fines were 76.7549 million
From November 18 to 20, the National Anti-Monopoly Administration issued 46 administrative punishment decisions in 3 days, which involved 60 penalties from 42 enterprises in 12 fields. According to the data, Internet companies account for more than 60%, followed by the automotive, logistics and consulting industries.
In these 46 administrative penalty decisions, the transaction and investigation time range of penalty cases is from 2012 to 2020, of which the largest number of cases in 2019 is 11, and there are 8 cases in 2017 and 2018.
Among the cases released by the National Anti-Monopoly Administration, the earliest was on December 29, 2012, when Baidu and Nanjing Netcode signed an agreement with Nanjing Trade Winds and its natural person shareholders to acquire 41% of the equity of Nanjing Trade Winds. The investigation spans 9 years.
According to the penalty decision, before the transaction, Nanjing NetDian held 10% of the equity of Nanjing Trade Winds. After the completion of the transaction, Baidu and Nanjing Netdian held 36% and 15% of the equity of Nanjing Trade Winds respectively, and obtained joint control over Nanjing Trade Winds. On March 12, 2013, Nanjing Trade Wind completed the registration of equity change. After investigation, failure to declare in accordance with the law before this violates Article 21 of the Anti-Monopoly Law, constituting a concentration of undertakings that has been illegally implemented. Baidu and Nanjing Netdian were given administrative penalties of 500,000 yuan fines respectively.
What industries has the NDA penalized?
Equity acquisitions in the Internet sector were fined the most
As a popular area in the emerging economy in recent years, the Internet has also become the focus of investigation by the State Anti-Monopoly Administration when exercising its regulatory functions.
Among the 46 administrative penalties issued by the State Anti-Monopoly Administration, the most involved were 35 cases of "equity acquisition"; followed by the case of the establishment of joint ventures, 8 of which occurred in the process of equity acquisition and joint ventures between companies in the Internet industry, constituting a concentration of undertakings that did not declare illegal implementation in accordance with the law.
Among them, on November 20, the official website of the Anti-Monopoly Bureau notified 43 cases of concentration of undertakings that were not declared illegally in accordance with the law, involving Suning, Tencent, Ali, Didi, Ele.me, Meituan, Taobao, JD.com, ByteDance, 58 Group and many other well-known enterprises in the Internet field, of which Tencent Holdings involved 13 penalties, and Ali and its holding companies including Alibaba Network, Alibaba Investment, Taobao China Holdings, Ali Health, Ali Travel and Ele.me involved a total of 12 cases.
According to the circular of the State Anti-Monopoly Administration, these cases all violated Article 21 of the Anti-Monopoly Law of the People's Republic of China, constituting an illegal implementation of the concentration of undertakings, and the assessment found that it did not have the effect of eliminating or restricting competition. In this regard, the State Administration for Market Regulation made administrative punishment decisions in accordance with Articles 48 and 49 of the Anti-Monopoly Law of the People's Republic of China, and imposed a fine of 500,000 yuan on the enterprises involved in the case.
The "first penalty" after the pharmaceutical and energy fields are now listed
In addition to the focus on illegal acts in the process of equity acquisition of "giant" enterprises in the Internet industry, the State Anti-Monopoly Administration issued 3 administrative penalty letters on the day of listing.
As the first penalty for "pharmaceutical anti-monopoly" after the State Anti-Monopoly Administration was listed, the penalty decision shows that Nanjing Ningwei Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. abused its dominant position in the sales market of chlorophosphodine APIs in China and implemented the monopolistic behavior of selling chlorphospholysis APIs at unfairly high prices and attaching unreasonable trading conditions. This is also the "first penalty" in the pharmaceutical field announced after the establishment of the State Anti-Monopoly Administration, with a total of more than 6.58 million yuan in fines and forfeitures.
On the same day, the penalty was also announced in the energy field "first penalty", "Yixing Ganghua Abuse of Market Dominance Case Administrative Punishment Decision", showing that Yixing Ganghua Gas Co., Ltd. abused its market dominance to sell goods at unfairly high prices, including charging high heating and capacity increase fees to residential users, charging unfairly high prices for gas pipeline installation projects for non-resident users, etc. Finally, Yixing Ganghua was ordered to stop the illegal acts, and at the same time, confiscated the illegal gains of 5.586 million yuan, and fined 3485.6 yuan for 2% of the sales in 2018, a total of 4044.2 yuan. This is also the case with the highest amount of penalties among the 46 administrative penalties.
In addition, the official website of the State Anti-Monopoly Administration also reported on November 18 that three logistics enterprises, Nisste Automobile Logistics (China) Co., Ltd., Ningbo Landun Zhiyu International Logistics Co., Ltd., and Tianmen Sanbang Logistics Co., Ltd., which constituted a competitive business operator to reach and implement monopoly agreements, were fined 1.749 million yuan, 334,000 yuan and 146,000 yuan respectively.