On November 21, the Supreme People's Court (SPC) drew up the Provisions on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Hearing of Civil Monopoly Dispute Cases (Draft for Public Comment) (the "Draft for Comment") for public comments. Solicitation for comments has come to a close by now.

The Draft for Comment has laid down more comprehensive and detailed provisions on anti-monopoly civil litigation from procedural to substantive rules, with regard to procedural provisions, definition of the relevant market, monopoly agreements, abuse of dominance, and civil liability. Based on the provisions of the revised Anti-Monopoly Law and the developments in new formats of business such as the digital economy, the Draft for Comment focuses on new additions relating to criteria on anti-monopoly substantive review and the regulation of internet platform behavior. According to the Draft for Comment, in analyzing and defining the relevant commodity market involving the Internet platform, people's courts may, according to factors such as the characteristics of the alleged monopolistic behavior, specific circumstances that have or may have the effect of excluding or restricting competition, and the type of an internet platform, choose to define the relevant commodity market based on a specific internet platform as a whole or based on the commodities on the side of the Internet platform that are most related to the alleged monopolistic behavior.

(Source: Supreme People's Court of China)