It will set a judicial benchmark for monopoly cases in the Internet field

On the morning of October 16, 2014, after the Supreme Court announced its verdict, it aroused public attention. In response to external questions about Tencent's market dominance, Sheng Jiemin, a professor at Peking University Law School who participated in the audit, told a reporter from China News Service, "Many people believe that a large market share means a monopoly. In fact, this is not the case. To determine whether a company has or abuses market dominance, status, many factors need to be considered.”

In Sheng Jiemin’s view, the Supreme Court’s ruling today is “particularly cautious” and does not easily identify a party’s illegal conduct, and fully explains it in terms of law and fact. One thing is worthy of recognition.

“The Supreme Court did not clearly determine whether Tencent has a dominant market position, but ‘believed that the existing evidence in this case is not sufficient to support the conclusion that the respondent has a dominant market position.’” Sheng Jiemin gave an example.

Sheng Jiemin pointed out that as the first monopoly case heard by the Supreme People’s Court, it will set a good example for future trial cases and administrative law enforcement. “In other words, achieving market dominance through competition is Legal and no problem, the question is, have you abused this position? Today’s sentence is a good legal interpretation of this.”

It is worth mentioning that today’s ruling In the 74,000-word judgment, the Supreme Court elaborated on a series of important legal issues such as relevant market definition standards in the sense of antitrust law in the Internet field, standards for identifying market dominance, and analytical principles and methods for abuse of market dominance, clarifying A number of important judgment standards for the application of antitrust laws have been established.

“Overall, today’s judgment is particularly professional. It should be said that it can show the world that China’s anti-monopoly law is at the forefront of the world.” Sheng Jiemin said.

The relevant person in charge of the Supreme People’s Court also stated that antitrust civil litigation cases in the Internet field are relatively rare internationally. The legal application standards set forth by the Supreme Court in its judgment will also have an important impact internationally.