Since the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020, the digital transformation of the world economy has been continuously catalyzed, and China's economy has faced the test of the epidemic and the uncertainty of the external environment.
By the end of 2020, there were 197 digital platform enterprises worth more than US$1 billion in China, an increase of 133 over 2015, and the average rate of rapid expansion was more than 26 per year.
In 2020, China's platform economy has maintained a rapid development momentum, but the rapid development of the mobile Internet traffic dividend has become more and more peaked, the Matthew effect of the platform economy has gradually emerged, the industry leader has shown a "monopoly" trend, the upward space of new start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises has gradually been squeezed, at the same time, synchronized with the trend of strengthening platform supervision in the world, this year China's regulatory policy on the platform economy has undergone an important change, strengthening anti-monopoly and preventing the disorderly expansion of capital has become the key work in 2021 and even in the future period.
At present, the monopoly and competition of the super network platform of the marriage of capital and technology coexist, how to grasp the anti-monopoly of the platform economy? What to think about in the antitrust fever? Where should the future platform economy ecology go? Zhai Wei, executive director of the Competition Law Research Center of East China University of Political Science and Law and associate professor of the School of Economic Law of East China University of Political Science and Law, said that anti-monopoly supervision is not to prevent the expansion of head enterprises, but to prevent it from growing barbarically, regulatory behavior itself is a constituent element of the market, and effective supervision can promote the healthy development of the market.
Strengthening antitrust supervision is conducive to narrowing the gap in the development of the digital economy between China and the United States
About three months after the "Anti-monopoly Guidelines on the Platform Economy" was publicly solicited for comments, it was officially launched in 2021, and a new era of anti-monopoly supervision is coming. This year, the head of the Internet company, penalties have landed.
Zhai Wei said that from around November last year to the implementation of anti-monopoly supervision in the economic field of Internet platforms, one of the points that has been emphasized is to prevent the disorderly expansion of capital. Anti-monopoly supervision is not to prevent the expansion of head enterprises, but to prevent the barbaric growth of super platforms, regulatory behavior itself is a constituent element of the market, and effective supervision can promote the healthy development of the market.
China, the United States and the European Union are now listed side by side as the world's three major anti-monopoly jurisdictions, compared with China and the United States, the gap in the digital economy is widening, this expansion is not because of the gap caused by China's strengthening of supervision, on the contrary, it is because China's anti-monopoly supervision is lacking in intensity or other aspects compared with the anti-monopoly supervision in the United States.
"In 2001, the U.S. government once sued Microsoft Because he had the corresponding monopolistic behavior, bundled sales, and refused to open the API blocking behavior, it is precisely because of the U.S. government's lawsuit, the two sides reached a settlement, Microsoft corrected his monopolistic behavior, and finally there was the rise of Facebook's new economy enterprises. If a company dominates in a market, the implementation of monopolistic behavior will hinder great innovation. Zhai Wei pointed out that anti-monopoly supervision is actually conducive to promoting the healthy and orderly rapid development of a country's digital economy. It is a positive factor, and our strengthening of antitrust supervision is conducive to narrowing the gap in the development of the digital economy between China and the United States.
Zhai Wei mentioned that the legal system promulgated by the European Union last year has introduced a series of draft laws in the area of consumer rights protection, data security, and anti-monopoly supervision, which has strengthened the legal system environment from multiple dimensions at the level of market supervision, with the purpose of creating a good and positive market economy ecology through a very optimized legal system environment, promoting the development of some start-ups and emerging enterprises, and driving the development of the overall economy of the EU. Overall, whether it is China, the European Union, the United States, anti-monopoly supervision or other types of market supervision, the purpose is to promote innovation with supervision, and promote development with supervision.
Anti-monopoly law enforcement and judicial strength are insufficient, and strengthening anti-monopoly supervision is moving toward normalization
In the entire history of the Internet economy, anti-monopoly is a weapon to remove obstacles to the healthy development of the Internet platform economy. The state's continuous improvement of anti-monopoly supervision of the platform economy is also to maintain a healthy and good development ecology of the market and protect the rights and interests of consumers.
Zhai Wei stressed that now our country often talks about the digital economy, including the field of platform economy, to achieve domestic and international double cycle, domestic anti-monopoly supervision is conducive to the benign development of the domestic cycle, only to strengthen anti-monopoly supervision, to avoid head platform enterprises squeeze the living space of small and medium-sized enterprises, to promote these head platform enterprises to focus on technological innovation, focus on increasing the well-being of the public, rather than focusing on monopoly profiteering, is conducive to the sustainable development of China's economy, is conducive to increasing the interests of the public.
From the perspective of the international environment, only the head platform enterprises no longer compete with small and medium-sized enterprises for profits, but focus on competing with international platform enterprises in the international market, which is conducive to enhancing the core competitiveness of our national enterprises in the international market and realizing the international virtuous cycle.
"Overall, our anti-monopoly supervision is entering a stage of benign development, this stage should be further promoted, in the field of law enforcement, in e-commerce, takeaway platforms, including online music platforms have already appeared related cases, in social media platforms, data-related platforms also hope to have updated typical cases or law enforcement standards appear." Zhai Wei said that at present, the Internet economy involves new types of monopolistic behavior. There are no relatively detailed law enforcement standards for long-standing information monopoly behavior, such as the behavior of big data killing.
Zhai Wei stressed that the Internet platform field is also in the stage of strengthening anti-monopoly supervision, and now it is necessary to formulate more detailed law enforcement standards in more industries. At present, the takeaway industry has clarified the anti-monopoly law, but many industries have not yet advanced. We need to expand anti-monopoly law enforcement in more industries, and we also need more judicial cases to give enterprises compliance guidance.
"From the perspective of regulatory power, whether it is the Eu or the United States, or our country, the lack of anti-monopoly law enforcement and the lack of judicial power are common phenomena." Zhai Wei said bluntly that in the first half of this year, our country proposed to expand the matching of anti-monopoly law enforcement forces and improve the anti-monopoly literacy of law enforcement personnel and judicial personnel. But these need to be done step by step.
At present, in the field of Internet platform economy, strengthening anti-monopoly supervision has shown a normalized trend, but it has not yet reached a comprehensive situation, and further promotion is needed in this regard. At the same time, legislation, law enforcement, and judicial organs have gradually formulated some more detailed standards in the design of legislative provisions and law enforcement judicial standards, which is conducive to Internet platform enterprises obtaining clearer compliance guidelines.
It is necessary to break through the antitrust regulatory framework of the original industrial economy era
Zhai Wei said that the main driving force for the good operation of the digital economy is to maintain a competitive situation of the market, after the anti-monopoly strengthening of supervision, comprehensive supervision, the platform economy, including the inherent positive effects of the digital economy can be maximized, which is conducive to the overall interests of the country and the social public interest.
Antitrust regulation works on two levels. The first level, strengthening anti-monopoly supervision, can ensure the trustworthiness of this digital platform market, whether it is small and medium-sized enterprises or users, can participate in the market.
Second, strengthening anti-monopoly supervision can ensure the economic vitality of the digital platform economy, ensure that development is conducive to the overall interests of consumers, and ensure that the development of the digital economy is driven by technological innovation.
He pointed out that the ultimate technology-driven digital platform economy is also conducive to enhancing our country's core competitiveness in the world. Internet competition after strengthening anti-monopoly supervision can block out some negative effects derived from the digital economy and give maximum play to the inherent positive effects of the digital economy.
Zhai Wei said that it is necessary to guide the healthy competition and compliance development of super platform enterprises, so that they can achieve their own expansion through technological innovation for the public welfare, rather than barbaric growth by obtaining monopoly profits. Now there is a problem that regulatory tools are not very matched, and the monopolistic behavior implemented by our enterprises, especially the super-large platform enterprises, is the monopolistic behavior that abuses the dominant market position.
The identification of this monopoly behavior should be divided into three steps, the first step of the relevant market identification, consider whether it constitutes abuse, in practice, the judicial level of law enforcement will encounter relatively large difficulties, the official draft of the "Anti-monopoly in the field of platform economy" released in February this year will be removed from the flexible provisions, at present, at the judicial level of law enforcement in our country, we must use the "Anti-Monopoly Law" regulatory tools to benignly guide super-large platform enterprises to abandon monopolistic behavior. The United States, the European Union, Germany and other foreign anti-monopoly law enforcement agencies are also facing the same challenges, they have also made certain innovations and breakthroughs. The draft of the EU digital marketization just mentioned is a certain breakthrough. In addition to the Anti-Monopoly Law, a separate law was created for "gatekeeper" enterprises, which set up monopolies of super-large platform enterprises and no longer relied on the Anti-Monopoly Law.
Zhai Wei mentioned that Germany has made innovations under the framework of the Anti-Monopoly Law, and article 19A has been added to the version of the German Anti-Restriction of Competition Law revised for the tenth time in January this year, arguing that if an enterprise is in multiple markets, cross-markets can have a significant impact on competition, in this case, as long as the enterprise has implemented the abuse of market power, it can be directly identified as monopoly behavior, and it is no longer necessary to define it as before, and this class has no market positioning in a relevant market. It separately stipulates that as long as an enterprise has a crucial influence on competition in multiple relevant markets, it has abused market power, which can constitute monopolistic behavior.
Gatekeeper enterprises or super-large platform enterprises, in the form of quasi-rights subjects, have quasi-legislative powers, quasi-administrative powers, and quasi-judicial powers in the bottom ecosystem of control, and have very large rights. Using network effects, big data resources, and algorithmic techniques, it is possible to exclude restrictive competition in various related markets in which he is involved. The placement of such monopolistic acts by enterprises must indeed break through the original anti-monopoly regulatory framework of the industrial economy era and formulate special legislative co-location standards for special behaviors.
Development trend of anti-monopoly law enforcement: interdisciplinary integration, specific supervision, and comprehensive market supervision
Zhai Wei believes that in terms of legislation, the concept of gatekeepers will be reflected in the provisions of the newly revised Anti-Monopoly Law to a certain extent. Under this framework, we may face three development trends in the future at the law enforcement level, first, anti-monopoly supervision, especially in the field of Internet platform economy. In the future, for anti-monopoly law enforcement departments, more attention should be paid to the integration of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledge.
Second, some new types of monopolistic behaviors in the field of Internet platforms in China need to be strengthened for acts such as platform "ban" and "two choices". Our anti-monopoly law enforcement agencies have further strengthened supervision in combination with the national conditions of The development of the Internet in our country and the unique monopolistic behavior of our country.
Third, the regulation we are talking about now is not just antitrust supervision. Market supervision includes anti-monopoly, anti-unfair competition, data security, consumer rights protection, and labor rights protection. Some super-large platform enterprises use big data to not only infringe on the rights and interests of users and consumers, but also infringe on the rights and interests of workers. In the future, anti-monopoly law enforcement agencies may have a problem of unified and systematic supervision. Led by the Anti-Monopoly Law, it is compatible with the application of other market supervision laws.
He said that it is foreseeable that in the future period of time, our anti-monopoly supervision will be further deepened, and ultimately it will be conducive to our overall digital economy, platform economy, sustainable and healthy development, and the overall public interest of society.
Beijing News shell financial reporter Cheng Zijiao intern Li Peiwen Editor Zhang Bing Proofreader Liu Baoqing
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