Sokol-Merger Control Under China’s Anti-Monopoly Law.pdfVIP

Merger Control Under China’s Anti-Monopoly Law * D. Daniel Sokol ABSTRACT: This paper explores the factors that drive merger outcomes under Chinas Anti- Monopoly Law (AML). The paper overcomes the problem of a small number of published merger decisions through a unique practitioner survey of antitrust lawyers across multiple jurisdictions. This survey captures transactions contemplated, but never undertaken (deterred by the merger regime), as well as mergers notified for approval under the AML. The survey allows for broader inferences to be drawn about the development of Chinese antitrust. These include: the welfare standard used in merger analysis, what industrial policy and other political factors may impact merger enforcement, as well as issues of institutional design, transparency, and delay. * Associate Professor of Law, University of Florida Levin College of Law; Visiting Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School. I wish to thank workshop participants at NYU Law School and the University of Minnesota and Malcolm Coate and Ping Lin for comments. 1 Electronic copy available at: /abstract=2207690Electronic copy available at: /abstract=2207690 I. Introduction China’s antitrust merger regime under its Anti-monopoly Law (AML) went into force in 2008. Since the AML’s introduction, over 600 mergers have been notified to China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) for antitrust review. Because of only a small number of MOFCOM issued merger decisions, the literature on Chinese merger control (Shan et al 2012; Lin and Zhao 2012) is based on a potentially unrepresentative sample. This article attempts bridge the empirical gap with a larger data set of transactions.