China issues draft antitrust compliance guidelines for internet platforms

BEIJING, Nov. 15 (Xinhua) -- China's State Administration for Market Regulation on Saturday released draft antitrust compliance guidelines for internet platforms and invited public feedback.

The draft sets out basic principles for strengthening antitrust compliance, refines the factors for identifying risks and the measures for managing them, and offers clear guidance for platform operators in fulfilling their compliance responsibilities.

China's fast-growing platform economy has become a major force behind innovation and industrial transformation, an administration official said. Platform rules, data, algorithms and other technical tools give operators significant influence over the competitive ecosystem, and any exclusionary conduct could harm a wide range of stakeholders.

Enforcement practice indicates that monopoly risks are relatively common in the platform economy, the official said, adding that platform operators have been looking forward to the introduction of highly targeted and practical compliance guidance.

The draft, the official said, will strengthen the antitrust rule framework for the platform economy, enhance operators' compliance capacity and spur greater self-driven innovation.

To enhance risk awareness, the guidelines list eight types of high-risk conduct, including unfair high pricing, below-cost sales and "whole-network lowest-price," which may involve data transmission, algorithm application, price setting, search rankings and traffic distribution.

The administration noted that the draft guidelines are non-binding and intended as general guidance to help platform operators accurately identify, assess and prevent antitrust-related compliance risks, and to encourage them to proactively regulate their business conduct.

Public comments will be accepted until Nov. 29, the administration said.