Main Developments in Competition Law and Policy 2025 – China

Legislative developments

The legislative developments in 2025 were marked by the adoption of the secondary regulations substantiating the provisions of the Anti-Monopoly Law (AML), which was amended in 2022. They have been especially notable in the domain of merger control. For example, the amended AML has significantly altered the penalties for implementation of economic concentrations without requisite regulatory approval. To substantiate these changes, State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) issued the Benchmarks for Administrative Discretion in Penalizing the Illegal Implementation of Economic Concentrations. This document clarifies the legal basis, procedural steps, and specific factors considered when imposing penalties for implementing mergers and acquisitions without requisite approval.

In June 2025, the SAMR launched public consultation on the Guidelines for the Review of Non-Horizontal Mergers. Since the start of the AML enforcement in 2008, Chinese authorities have issued prohibitions or conditional clearances in over thirty non-horizontal cases, representing roughly half of all such decisions. Their relevance is particularly acute in high tech sectors, where non-horizontal deals often outnumber horizontal ones. It could be anticipated that the proportion of non-horizontal deals requiring scrutiny will likely remain high, making the Non-Horizontal Guidelines particularly solicited by the business community.

For the first time, the filing requirements for economic concentrations have been codified by the SAMR in the form of Specifications for the Notification of Economic Concentrations. This document consolidated and replaced four previous documents, while incorporating the latest legal provisions and practical insights from the reviewed cases.

In the field of anti-competitive agreements, SAMR launched public consultation on the revised Provisions on Prohibiting Anti-Competitive Agreements to implement the requirements of Article 18(3) AML. This document proposes setting differentiated market share thresholds for various types of vertical agreements (resale price maintenance, exclusive dealing, etc.) depending on the potential degree of anti-competitive harm. Moreover, the revised document breaks from previous legislation, which relied on a single market share criterion for the safe harbor purposes and proposes that annual turnover should also be considered as an additional relevant factor.

A number of compliance and enforcement guidelines have been developed in relation to the specific sectors that according to the competition authorities merited special attention. Thus, in  January 2025, the Anti-Monopoly Commission of the State Council issued the Guidelines on Anti-Monopoly Enforcement in the Pharmaceutical Sector. This document was designed on the basis of the 2021 guidelines that specifically targeted active pharmaceutical ingredients, where anti-competitive practices were frequently observed. Recognizing that the pharmaceutical industry features lengthy supply chains, a wide range of participants, and complex business models, the new guidelines aim at providing a comprehensive and dedicated regulatory guidance covering all drug varieties.

In November 2025, the SAMR initiated public consultation on the Guidelines for Anti-Monopoly Compliance of Internet Platforms. This document aims at assisting platform operators in identifying antitrust compliance risks. It draws from past enforcement experience and illustrates eight antitrust risk scenarios: (1) anti-competitive algorithmic collusion; (2) organizing or assisting merchants on the platform in reaching anti-competitive agreements; (3) platforms imposing unfairly high prices; (4) selling products or services below cost; (5) engaging in content blocking and account suspension; (6) enforcing exclusivity arrangements; (7) requiring merchants to offer lowest prices; and (8) applying discriminatory treatment.

Finally, SAMR turned its attention to public utilities, a sector where anti-competitive practices are especially harmful to the public welfare. Anti-competitive agreements in utilities sector are predominantly horizontal and have been frequently found in the gas industry. Frequent infringements include local operators fixing prices, price fluctuation ranges, or profit margins through oral agreements and meetings. Other anti-competitive arrangements involve dividing geographic markets, allocating customers, or sharing profits through cooperative operations or joint ventures. To provide clearer ex ante guidance and highlight antitrust risks, in August 2025 SAMR initiated public consultation on the Anti-Monopoly Guidelines in the Public Utilities Sector.

Enforcement developments

The Shanghai AMR prosecuted three pharmaceutical companies for fixing the price of Neostigmine Methylsulfate Injection, inflating it by 11 to 21 times, and segmented markets between public and private hospitals to stabilize their shares and restrict competition. The AMR confiscated the illegal gains obtained by the enterprises and imposed the maximum statutory fine of 10% of the previous year’s turnover on the company identified as the organizer of the cartel. For first time since the amended AML introduced liability of natural persons for AML infringements, the AMR penalized a natural person for participating in the conclusion of an anti-competitive agreement. Following this case, the Tianjin AMR penalized a cartel organized by an individual. The case involved a natural person facilitating an anti-competitive agreement among four pharmaceutical companies. For the natural person, the competition authority imposed the maximum individual fine of CNY 5 million.

The year 2025 saw active AML enforcement in merger control, with decisions driven by the need to secure critical supply chains and foster innovation. In the case involving Chilean mining companies, remedies were imposed to prevent the merged entities from controlling the sales channels and pricing power for key resources such as copper and lithium, thereby safeguarding downstream industries including new energy and electronics from potential supply blockades or discriminatory pricing. Similarly, the conditional approvals of the acquisitions Keysight Technologies/Spirent Comunications and Synopsys/Ansys were aimed to preserve innovative competitors. The imposed remedies aim at preventing the merged entities from reducing research and development investments, increasing prices, and causing technology dependency for customers, which could stifle long term innovation. In global logistics and agriculture mergers, the imposed remedies sought to prevent the excessive consolidation of specific air routes and agricultural trade channels, which could allow the merged entities to charge higher fees or offer inferior service. Notably, SAMR prohibited the acquisition Wuhan Yongtong/Shandong Huatai in the pharma sector. This case is notable as only the fourth prohibition since the AML took effect in 2008, the first to block a deal that did not meet the notification thresholds, and the first to legally mandate that the parties unwind the completed concentration.

In 2025, the SAMR has formalized the regional decentralization in the enforcement of merger control under the AML. It was initiated as a pilot program in 2022 when SAMR delegated the merger review of certain types of concentrations to provincial market regulation departments in five provinces and municipalities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Chongqing, and Shaanxi. Effective August 1, 2025, this temporary delegation was converted in a permanent, formal distribution of merger control competences.

The year of 2025 was marked by a number of high-profile antitrust investigations involving foreign companies. The probe into Google commenced in February 2025 with the SAMR announcing a case of suspected violations of the AML without further details on the exact nature of the alleged infringements. This investigation remains ongoing, with specific allegations and final conclusions not yet public. Subsequently, on September 15, 2025, the antitrust agency issued its preliminary findings against NVIDIA. It stated that the company had failed to comply with the merger remedies, such as non-discrimination commitments that were accepted during its 2020 acquisition of Mellanox. This preliminary finding of a suspected violation, due to its potential harm to market competition, moved the case into a phase of in-depth investigation. In April 2025, SAMR opened an investigation into DuPont and announced its suspension in July of the same year. This highlights the proactive use of commitments within China’s antitrust system, offering a pathway for resolving complex cases through cooperation and corrective actions. 

Courts and competition law enforcement

The year 2025 was also marked by significant developments in China’s judicial oversight of the AML enforcement. The judgment issued by the Beijing Intellectual Property Court in the case of Beijing Tobishi Pharmaceuticals v. SAMR marked the first judicial review of a merger decision since the AML came into effect in 2008. The dispute centered on the SAMR’s 2023 conditional approval of the acquisition Simcere Pharmaceuticals/Beijing Tobishi. After a merger assessment, the SAMR concluded that the transaction would likely have anti-competitive effects in the domestic batroxobin injections market. It imposed several remedial obligations on the merging parties, including terminating exclusive agreements and reducing drug prices. Following an unsuccessful administrative reconsideration, Tobishi filed an administrative lawsuit in March 2024. In its judgment, the Beijing IP court confirmed the SAMR’s authority to conditionally approve voluntarily notified concentrations, that prohibition not a preferred remedy, and that the primary purpose of merger assessment is to address competition problems arising from the transaction.

The Supreme People’s Court released five typical anti-monopoly cases which addressed various legal issues arising out of AML enforcement across several industries including transportation, building materials, active pharmaceutical ingredients, and chemicals. The selected cases involved abuses of administrative power to exclude or restrict competition, horizontal anti-competitive agreements to fix prices and divide markets, and trade associations facilitating anti-competitive collusion of their members. Among them, the cement association case clarified the criteria for determining when an association of undertakings can be considered a facilitator of anti-competitive agreements, thereby delineating acceptable boundaries for trade associations’ activities. In another case concerning anti-competitive agreement on the market for construction materials, the court clarified the applicable presumption of anti-competitive harm and the rules for calculating damages in cartel cases significantly alleviating the plaintiff's burden of proof. Lastly, the formaldehyde sales case refined the standards for identifying the conclusion and implementation of anti-competitive agreements, aiding courts in their adjudication.

Conclusions

China’s 2025 antitrust agenda centered on secondary rules implementing the 2022 Anti‑Monopoly Law (AML), with merger control in focus. SAMR issued or launched public consultation on a number of guidelines clarifying various merger control issues such as penalties for implementing economic concentrations without approval, assessment of non-horizontal mergers, contents of the merger notifications, etc. Sector guidance similarly broadened covering pharmaceuticals, Internet platforms, and public utilities.

Competition authorities pursued collusion in healthcare markets, dismantling price‑fixing and market segmentation schemes, confiscating unlawful gains, and imposing penalties. Crucially, liability extended to individuals, signaling that personal involvement in anti‑competitive conduct will attract sanctions alongside corporate fines. Merger control was equally active, with remedies calibrated to protect supply‑chain resilience, maintain competitive pressure on innovation, and restrain anti-competitive market consolidation.

Antitrust scrutiny of multinational companies underscored a readiness to tackle complex, cross‑border issues, including compliance with past remedies and the constructive use of commitments to resolve competition concerns. Judicial oversight advanced in parallel: landmark decisions clarified when trade associations can be deemed facilitators of collusion, eased plaintiffs’ evidentiary burden through presumptions and damage‑calculation rules in cartel cases, and refined standards for identifying the formation and implementation of restrictive agreements.

See also the annual reviews of China’s competition law and policy developments for 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.