China’s top court issues Judicial Interpretation of Anti-Unfair Competition Law

2022/08/12

 

China’s Supreme People's Court on March 16 issued the Judicial Interpretation (JI) of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law (AUCL) of the People’s Republic of China (《最高人民法院关于适用〈中华人民共和国反不正当竞争法〉若干问题的解释》), which came into effect on March 20. The JI consists of 29 articles, including a further elucidation of Article 2 of the AUCL and detailed provisions about anti-competitive practices such as counterfeiting, false adverting, and unfair competition on the Internet.

The AUCL was enacted in September 1993 and amended twice in 2017 and 2019 respectively to adapt to the developing and varying economic environment in new eras. In order to resolve complex practical situations that were not clearly defined and better coordinate the law enforcement, the Supreme People's Court issued the Interpretation of the Supreme People’s Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Civil Cases Involving Unfair Competition (《最高人民法院关于审理不正当竞争民事案件应用法律若干问题的解释》) in 2007, which was later amended in 2020. However, the 2020 amendments were mainly adaptive ones. The amendments announced on March 16 have not only refined and summarized the principles and rules of judicial decisions in recent years, but also systematically responded to current practical needs, which can be the optimization of former versions and serve as the guidelines for the application of the AUCL in the coming years.

The full text is available here.