“Absolutely nothing. At least not to me. At least not so far,” writes China legal expert Dan Harris in an initial reaction. The rest:
I spent the early years of my legal career practicing antitrust law and I still enjoying trying to stay current, but this has, if anything, made me quite circumspect regarding China’s new anti-monopoly law. The big question is how this new law will impact foreign businesses that are in or doing business with China and my unequivocal answer is that I am not prepared to say.
I have not had a chance to study the law in its entirety yet, or to discuss it with other lawyers and, more importantly, so much is going to depend on enforcement, that I think at this point it is almost impossible to know what it will mean. It boggles my mind to think that Chinese lawyers and judges with no real antitrust law background will soon be seeking to interpret and enforce antitrust laws. Maybe more than any other legal area, antitrust is complicated and fact specific and rife with policy implications. Because of this, I have a sneaking suspicion that very little will happen under the new laws for quite some time. [Full Text]
