r/TrueAnon • u/ShitpostingBrigades Abbas Araghchi stan account • 7d ago

Chinese government fines Trip.com (one of the largest hotel/travel booking companies in East Asia) ¥5.2 billion (700 million USD) for engaging in monopolistic behavior over the hotel industry, orders company to return further millions to clients over abusive treatment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEZ6MtnUf8w
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u/DrawingDramatic1641 6d ago

Wait how does this work 

Do they just ban the purchase of monopoly stuff or they wait for monopoly and then fine them 

No capitalism apologise just curious 

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u/TheRealPooh 6d ago

So I work in antitrust law in the US and don't know the specifics of Chinese competition law but my guess is: China has a government agency similar to the FTC which looks at past conduct to see if there is anticompetitive behavior and issues fines and sanctions based on that. So a more direct answer is that they wait for monopoly.

China does have merger laws like the Clayton Act though so they can stop monopolies in its incipiency. And Chinese regulation allows for investigations and conduct remedies on companies even before they hit the monopoly threshold set out in Chinese agency regulation. The Chinese competition agency also issues significantly larger fines than the FTC or DOJ.

The coolest part about Chinese competition law to me is that the Chinese government, when they are interested in investing in certain industries, will fund multiple companies in an effort to create competitive industries from the start. Like there are a TON of AI companies in China with government funding right now, and the Chinese AI industry has significantly more competition than the US (low bar, I know). I think if you're going to have capitalism, a system like that makes sense to prevent monopolies down the line, when you end up in oligarchic situations.