An Anti-Monopoly Law for China – Scaling the Walls of Protectionist Government Restraints

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

Government restraints are under-explored among US antitrust scholars.  I am finishing off a draft of an article on this issue myself but more on that at a later posting.  Eleanor Fox of NYU Law School, whose path-blazing work on international antitrust helped to promote this area of scholarship, recently uploaded a forthcoming essay for the Antitrust Law Journal titled An Anti-Monopoly Law for China – Scaling the Walls of Protectionist Government Restraints.  This is an essay worth reading because the implications of government restraints on competition extend far beyond China.

ABSTRACT: Most nations deal with abusive government restraints and abusive private restraints by different instruments of law. This essay demonstrates, however, the integral nature of public and private protectionist restraints. It provides examples of integrated analysis in the United States, the European Union, and the World Trade Organization. It argues that a Chinese effort to address administrative economic abuses in its competition law would be progressive and helpful to the Chinese economy, especially in the absence of a Chinese “Commerce Clause.” Also, it argues for fuller coverage of state-owned monopolies. SOEs and provincial and local protectionist restraints are among China's most significant obstacles to realizing the benefits of markets.