China Anti-monopoly law enforcement 2021

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In 2021, the State Administration of market regulation of China investigated and dealt with 175 monopoly cases, a year-on-year increase of 61.5%, and the amount of fines and confiscations was 23.592 billion yuan. Among them, there were 11 cases of monopoly agreements, with a fine of 1.673 billion yuan; 11 cases of abuse of dominant market position, with a fine of 21.847 billion yuan; 107 cases of illegal concentration of business operators were publicly punished and a fine of 72.35 million yuan was imposed; There were 46 cases of abusing administrative power to exclude or restrict competition. 727 cases of concentration of business operators were concluded, a year-on-year increase of 53%, including 1 case of prohibition and 4 cases of approval with restrictive conditions.

There were 27 concentration cases in the semiconductor industry, 24 cases were filed and 26 cases were concluded. The total transaction amount was 736.1 billion yuan, involving 2 cases in the semiconductor equipment industry, 23 cases in the semiconductor manufacturing industry and 1 case in the semiconductor distribution industry. There were 15 cases were examined by simple notifying procedure while other 11 cases subject to normal procedure. The concentration types of semiconductor industry mainly include: 23 are equity acquisitions, 2 are newly established joint ventures, and 1 is asset and business acquisitions. In 2021, the SAMR approved 24 cases unconditionally and 2 cases with additional restrictive conditions.