 In the last issue we mainly focused on practices where participants (Participants) to group transactions act as sellers, including purchase volume threshold, exclusive purchase agreements, and bundle sales. The above three types of practice generally do not violate the Anti-Monopoly Law (AML), but still require special attention when Participants possess a dominant market position, especially in bundle sales without commercial rationale, which may run afoul of the Fair Competition Law even if it does not violate the AML.2. Participants as buyers Participants as buyers usually wish to enter into an exclusive sales agreement (ESA) with suppliers so that they can make full use of the integrated sales channel. Under an ESA arrangement, distributors (Participants) will make efforts to promote the products, which in turn promote competition. An EPA is also commonly used as an important means for foreign brands to enter into the domestic market, and through which the manufacturer could choose a reliable distributor. However, if the market share of the distributor or manufacturer is too large, such an arrangement may restrict competition, and make market entry more difficult for new competitors. The Chinese AML judges the legality of an ESA by applying the rule of reason. When applying the rule of reason, the enforcement authority generally examines factors such as the market share of the parties, the duration of contract, product scope agreed in the contract, etc. Participants may agree on the resale price of products purchased from sellers. In some cases, such agreement is achieved solely among Participants, where sellers are either uninvolved or lack the power to make a decision, and therefore, the agreement should not be deemed resale price maintenance; to the contrary, Participants actually agree on the product price as competitors, which constitutes horizontal price fixing. The agreement exceeds the purpose of the transactional organisation, and its anti-competition effect is obvious. Based on the same analysis, when Participants purchase raw materials from a seller to make a final product, if they agree on the price of the final product they are exposed to significant risk of horizontal agreement. Information exchange among Participants should be strictly limited. It is almost inevitable business information is exchanged when Participants engage in transactions as a whole. Take group purchase as an example, under the same, or substantially the same terms and conditions, Participants are aware of each other’s purchase information. If the purchase expense takes up a large portion in the total cost, it is easy to figure out the product cost and production capacity of a competitor through information such as the purchase expense and amount. Under such a circumstance, Participants may secretly conspire in respect of price, output, sales volume, etc. It should be noted that even if a cartel of small and medium-sized companies can be exempted, all activities of Participants do not necessarily fall into the scope of ‘safe harbor’. If the concerted acts exceed the purpose of the ‘safe harbor’, the Participants will find themselves exposed to liability. For any Participant, the risk not only comes from its own act, but also others. This all means that being self-disciplined is not enough, and Participants should reach a consensus on significant matters when establishing the transactional organisation, and set up a code of conduct and ground rules, and strictly carry them out. In addition, a long-term transactional organisation should develop its own antitrust policy, and clarify the purpose and scope of their group transaction in their guidelines to remind its members of the necessity to be compliant. Group transactions are not only attractive to small and medium-sized companies, large corporations also consider the possibility to join in. Is an organisation still exempted under the ‘safe harbor’ if it accepts a large corporation? The AML does not specifically regulate on this issue. Considering the legislative purpose, this ‘safe harbor’ is established to promote competition and integrate the market powers of small and medium-sized companies so that they can rival against larger companies or at least improve their disadvantageous market position. Participation of a large corporation may significantly strengthen the power of the organisation; but accordingly, whether such an organisation can still be seen as a cartel consisting of small and medium-sized companies only, and whether the organisation will be manipulated by the big corporation all become questions worthy of further discussion. In most cases involving horizontal agreement, we focus on competitors’ activity to reduce or eliminate competition; sometimes problems arise when competition becomes excessive. When one company participates in a transactional organisation, it may wish to block its competitors from joining in. The circumstance is more commonly seen when trying to attract major corporations – the larger it is, the less rivals of equivalent size there will be. If a transaction organisation can attract a big company to participate, the organisation will undertake not to accept any rivals of the company in exchange. Such activity may constitute joint boycott. Joint boycott is a typical way of safeguarding horizontal agreement and punishing companies refusing to conspire. It is also against the purpose of cooperation among small and medium-sized companies, and should be judged under illegal per se. 共同交易中的反垄断风险（下） 2. 參與方作為買方 參與方可能對從賣方購買的產品進行轉售的價格進行約定。在部分案例中，這種約定是參與方自行達成的，賣方並未牽涉其中或不具備決策能力，因此不能被認定為縱向協議語境下的轉售價格限制﹔相反，參與方實質上是作為競爭者對產品的售價進行約定，這樣的行為屬於橫向價格固定。這樣的約定與共同購買的行為無關，也超出了共同交易組織設立的目的，應當單獨進行評價 — 其反競爭的效果是顯而易見的。基於同樣的分析，參與方對從賣方購買的原料進行加工，形成最終產品后，對其銷售價格進行約定，也存在重大橫向協議風險。 三、參與方之間 參與方之間的信息交流需要予以嚴格限制。由於作為一個整體對外參與市場交易，參與方之間對經營信息進行交換幾乎是不可避免的。以共同購買為例，在同樣或幾乎同樣的條款和條件下，各參與方互相知悉採購的相關信息，如果該筆採購成本在總成本中佔據很大比重（例如，對核心原材料或半成品的採購），則很容易通過採購成本、採購數量等信息推導出競爭者的產品成本和生產規模。這種情況下，參與方有可能採取默契的橫向壟斷行為，對產品的價格、產量、銷量等進行協調。需要注意，即使”安全港”下的中小企業卡特爾可以得到豁免，也並不意味著參與方之間的所有行為都在豁免范圍之內。如果參與方的協同行為超出了”安全港”的目的，則仍然會暴露在反壟斷風險之中。對於任何一個參與方，其面臨的風險不僅來自自身行為，也同樣來自其它參與方的行為。這就意味著僅僅嚴於律己是不夠的，參與方在建立共同交易組織的時候應當就包括信息交流在內的重大問題達成共識，設立行為規范與基本原則，並予以嚴格遵守。此外，長期性的共同交易組織應當制定專門的反壟斷合規政策，並在綱領性文件中明確組織共同交易的目的與范圍，以便隨時提醒成員保持合規。 共同交易並非隻對中小企業具有吸引力，大企業也會考慮參與共同交易。大企業參與中小企業合作組織，該組織是否仍然能夠受到”安全港”的豁免？反壟斷法對此並無明確規定。從立法目的來看，本”安全港”設立的目的是促進市場競爭，整合中小企業的市場力量，使之可以與更大的企業相抗衡，或者至少能夠改善其市場不利地位。大企業加入組織可以顯著增強該組織的實力，但相應的，該組織是否仍能視為由中小企業組成的卡特爾，以及組織決策權是否會被大企業攫取，都是值得進一步探討的問題。 在大部分橫向協議案件中，我們關注的是競爭者之間減少或消除競爭的行為，但有時候也會因為競爭過於激烈而引發問題。當一家企業進入共同交易組織后，可能希望阻止其競爭者日后加入。這種情況在吸引大企業加入聯盟時更為常見 — 因為企業越大，體量相當的競爭者越少，能夠與其抗衡的往往僅是市場上少數公司﹔當共同交易組織能夠吸引一家大企業加入，通常意味著該組織的市場地位可以獲得實質性的提升，作為對價該組織往往要向大企業承諾，不會再吸納其它有競爭關系的大企業﹔相反，小企業面對的競爭者數量多如牛毛，想要阻止它們加入難度很大，也容易遭受其它參與方的質疑。這種行為可構成聯合抵制。聯合抵制是維護橫向協議、懲罰不參與共謀的公司的典型手段，也與中小企業合作的目的背道而馳，應適用本身違法。 —————— |
Anti-trust risks in group transaction (III)
