Three years ago, China’s first comprehensive antitrust law, the hotly debated Anti-Monopoly Law of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), took effect. Late last month, China took another significant leap into the global arena of competition policy and enforcement when it signed a widely anticipated Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Antitrust and Anti-Monopoly Cooperation with the United States.
According to its stated objectives, the MOU arose from a mutual desire to “enhance the effective enforcement” of “competition laws and policies by creating a framework for long-term cooperation between U.S. antitrust agencies and the PRC anti-monopoly agencies.” This development is not surprising given that U.S. antitrust authorities were consulted by the PRC when drafting their first-ever antitrust law.
