On June 27, the 16th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People's Congress deliberated and passed the newly revised Anti unfair Competition Law of the People's Republic of China, which will come into force on October 15 this year. As China's first basic legal system to promote fair competition, standardize the market competition order and maintain the healthy operation of the market economy, the Anti unfair Competition Law has been implemented for more than 30 years since 1993. It was amended twice in 2017 and 2019, and the third amendment was completed at this meeting of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. In line with the new development of the Internet industry, this revision is timely to face new situations and new problems such as unfair competition in the Internet and further improve the fair competition rules in the digital economy. ——Fair competition is the fundamental principle of a market economy, and improving the legal system against unfair competition is an inherent requirement for building a high-level socialist market economy. In recent years, new technologies, new formats, and new models have emerged rapidly, and the market competition field is constantly facing new situations and problems, such as "internal competition", unfair competition behavior on the Internet, diversified and complex confusion behavior, and infringement of data rights and interests. The Anti Unfair Competition Law, as a fundamental and specialized law in the field of competition, also needs to change with the times. What are the highlights of the newly revised Anti Unfair Competition Law? What is the response to the hot issues in the field of market competition that society is concerned about? How can we better create a fair competition market environment? The reporter conducted an interview on this matter. Improve regulations on false reviews, malicious returns, and other behaviors. When shopping online, the sales volume and positive review rate of a product are important manifestations of its competitiveness and important basis for consumer decision-making. However, in reality, some of the hot selling products that people are crazily competing for may actually be fake. Recently, the Cybersecurity Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security announced the successful investigation of a "cyber army" brushing case by the police in Yunhe County, Lishui City, Zhejiang Province. The criminal gang developed brushing software, set up backend servers, purchased a large number of e-commerce platform accounts, and provided commercial rankings, credit ratings, and user traffic to e-commerce platforms for a fee through false transactions. They have provided over 20 million brushing "services" to more than 5000 e-commerce companies, involving more than 30 million yuan in funds. In addition to brushing 'positive reviews', there are also people who put in a lot of effort on' negative reviews'. Last August, a certain e-commerce company suddenly received a large number of negative reviews, with customers reporting issues with product quality. After investigation by the public security organs, it was found that another e-commerce company had planned to purchase the company's products and posted malicious negative reviews online in order to crack down on competitors. From buying 'positive reviews' for oneself to brushing' negative reviews' for competitors, false reviews have become a typical behavior of unfair competition on the internet. ”Wang Xianlin, director of the Center for Competition Law and Policy at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, said that in addition to false evaluations, new forms of unfair competition on the internet such as advertising blocking, traffic hijacking, and data killing are constantly emerging, which not only harm the legitimate rights and interests of operators and consumers, but also violate the basic principles of fair competition in the market economy and the goal of high-quality development of China's digital economy. Shi Hong, director of the Civil Law Office of the Law Working Committee of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, introduced that the newly revised Anti unfair Competition Law improved the provisions on online unfair competition, made provisions on unfair competition behaviors such as infringement of data rights and interests and malicious transactions, and further refined the various manifestations of malicious transactions in practice. For example, it stipulated that operators should not abuse the platform rules, directly or instigate others to conduct false transactions, false evaluations or malicious returns to other operators, damage the legitimate rights and interests of other operators, and disrupt the market competition order. It is crucial to address unfair competition on the internet, establish reasonable obligations for internet platform operators, and clarify their relevant governance responsibilities. In response, the newly revised Anti Unfair Competition Law stipulates that platform operators should clarify the fair competition rules within the platform in the platform service agreement and transaction rules, establish a mechanism for reporting, complaining, and resolving disputes related to unfair competition, and guide and regulate fair competition among platform operators in accordance with the law; If it is found that operators within the platform engage in unfair competition behavior, necessary measures shall be taken in a timely manner in accordance with the law, relevant records shall be kept, and reports shall be made to the supervisory and inspection department of the people's government at or above the county level where the platform operator resides in accordance with regulations. These regulations can not only leverage the platform's advantages in information acquisition, evidence fixation, and timely prevention, but also help the platform better establish and follow the principles of fair competition and good faith when formulating and implementing platform rules. ”Wang Xianlin believes that fair competition is not only the bottom line that platforms and merchants who join the platform should follow, but also the driving force for their stable and far-reaching development. In the long run, the higher the standardization level of the platform, the better the fair competition environment, the more conducive it is to attracting a large number of merchants and consumers, and the more conducive it is to stimulating market vitality and expanding market scale. Strengthening the legal governance of "involution" competition. Recently, a notice prohibiting passengers from carrying non compliant power banks on domestic flights has attracted attention, and has also exposed safety hazards triggered by the "involution" of the power bank industry. Industry insiders have reported that in recent years, under the influence of the "internal competition" trend in the industry, the production cost of power banks has been decreasing. On a certain e-commerce platform, a 20000mAh power bank is priced at only 14.5 yuan, and under the product photo, it is prominently labeled as "brand hot selling 50 million+". In order to reduce costs, some power bank manufacturers continuously lower the purchase prices of battery cells and other raw materials, while raw material suppliers constantly explore the safety bottom line, greatly increasing the safety hazards of power banks. Since the beginning of this year, there have been multiple incidents of passengers carrying power banks catching fire and emitting smoke on airplanes, greatly endangering public safety. 'Internal competition' is a vicious competition in which business entities continuously invest a lot of energy and resources to maintain their market position or compete for limited markets, but do not bring about overall revenue growth. ”Sun Jin, Vice President of the China Business Law Research Association and Professor at the Law School of Wuhan University, said that whether relying on price wars to "roll" the market or excessive marketing to "roll" sales, the result is to break through the boundaries of market competition, distort resource allocation and price signals, disrupt fair competition order, and even become an obstacle to enterprise innovation and development, and the upward climb of the value chain. Shi Hong stated that the newly revised Anti Unfair Competition Law has improved the system for governing "internal competition". For example, it stipulates that the state should establish and improve a fair competition review system, strengthen fair competition review work in accordance with the law, and ensure that all types of operators can use production factors equally and participate in market competition fairly in accordance with the law. The newly revised Anti Unfair Competition Law includes' involution 'competition in the scope of adjustment and focuses on regulating it, providing a stronger legal weapon for governing the chaos of' involution 'competition. At the same time, it is also a powerful measure to address new problems that arise in the development of the digital economy and to keep pace with the times to improve and perfect the competition law. ”Sun Jin believes that effectively implementing the relevant provisions of the Anti Unfair Competition Law on regulating "internal competition" requires the collaborative efforts of the government, judicial organs, platforms, and enterprises to form a full chain systematic governance system of "rule making - standardized operation - law enforcement and supervision - judicial protection", and achieve the transformation from "low price low quality" cycle to "innovation high quality". Before introducing policies related to the economic activities of business entities, local governments must carefully conduct a fair competition review, impose rigid constraints on the drafting and formulation of relevant policy measures, and clear existing policy barriers to avoid inducing inefficient competition among enterprises through "internal competition"; Platforms and enterprises should strictly operate in accordance with the new laws and regulations, and strictly implement their main responsibilities; Administrative law enforcement departments can widely adopt the "credit+technology" approach, allocate law enforcement resources reasonably according to the credit rating of enterprises in law enforcement inspections, and improve law enforcement accuracy and efficiency through innovative regulatory tools such as big data and artificial intelligence; Judicial organs should open up channels for relief, clarify standards for judgment and determination, and guide the whole society to form a healthy competitive environment through fair justice. Since the beginning of this year, multiple food delivery platforms have engaged in price wars to seize the market, including increasing supervision on behaviors such as vicious price wars, providing billions of subsidies, billions of assistance funds, 3.9 yuan coffee, and 2.9 yuan hamburger packages. In this business war, on the one hand, promotional activities such as "1 yuan milk tea" have created consumers' psychological expectations of "shearing wool"; On the other hand, some businesses face the dilemma of "increasing revenue without increasing income, and increasing revenue without increasing profits". Some small and medium-sized businesses are even more in trouble: if they do not participate in promotions, they will lose traffic, and if they participate, they will face losses. A tea shop owner admitted, 'I knew it was drinking poison to quench my thirst, but I had to drink it.' Clearly, a price war means diluting profits or even losses, which is difficult to sustain from a business perspective. Why does it still happen? Wang Xianlin believes that on the one hand, some businesses "increase volume" and "make quick money" at the cost of reducing product quality; On the other hand, some platforms rely on their strong position, either by offering platform subsidies as incentives or directly forcing merchants within the platform to participate in price wars, in order to expand transaction scale and increase market share. Price wars may seem beneficial to consumers, but in reality, they are likely to infringe upon consumer rights. ”Wang Xianlin said that in the long run, this can easily lead to a decline in the level of internal management and quality control within the enterprise, harm the rights and interests of small and medium-sized operators and workers within the platform, intensify low-level disorderly competition among operators within the platform, and increase the risk of market disorder, ultimately harming the interests of consumers. The newly revised Anti Unfair Competition Law stipulates that platform operators shall not force or indirectly force platform operators to sell goods at prices lower than cost in accordance with their pricing rules, thereby disrupting market competition order. This is precisely the response to the above question. The newly revised Anti Unfair Competition Law actively responds to society's concern about unfair competition behavior on platforms, guiding market competition towards survival of the fittest rather than reverse elimination. ”Sun Jin stated that this law conveys a clear direction that platforms should focus on the long term, expand the cake through innovation, optimize competition rules in a timely manner, maintain a healthy business ecosystem, and provide sufficient rights protection and profit space for merchants on the platform, rather than zero sum games that excessively squeeze the profit space of small and medium-sized enterprises. (New Society)