For a long time, Chinese Anti-Monopoly Law Enforcement Agencies (AMEA) and judicial branches have been applying different standards when reviewing the illegality of vertical agreements. Chinese AMEA persists that vertical agreements are per seillegal. Once such an agreement presents external elements provided in the Article 14 of the Anti-Monopoly Law (AML), it violates the law without further competitive analysis. However, Chinese courts have been recognized the dual effects of vertical agreements. Therefore, a court will consider competitive and anti-competitive influences of a vertical restraint when judging on its illegality. In 2017, the Supreme Court of China responded to such a discrepancy in Hainan Yutai Technology Feed Ltd. v. Hainan Provincial Price Bureau in an intermediary way. The Court realized the dual effects of vertical restraints, while ruled that the AMEA should not burden the obligation to prove the anti-competitiveness of vertical restraints in question. The court further decided that the business operator in the case should defend its immunity according to Article 15 of the AML, which in fact shifted the proof burden to the undertaking’s side.

Content
Case Analysis
On The Illegality of Vertical Agreements: Comments on Hainan Yutai Technology Feed
Ltd. v. Hainan Provincial Price Bureau
​Author: GLO Partner Jiang (John) Wan

Antitrust Monograph (Bilingual)
On The Arbitrability of Antitrust Civil Disputes in China
​Author: GLO Partner Jiang (John) Wan | Associate Guo Cheng | Associate Wang Mengzhen