Research on Subject Qualification of Anti-Monopoly Civil Public Interest Litigation

Abstract

In recent years, with the development of the market economy, the number of illegal monopoly cases is increasing. The new Anti-Monopoly Law of the People's Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as the New Anti-Monopoly Law) was amended on June 24, 2022, in order to better maintain the order of the market economy, crack down on monopolistic behaviors and improve the legal system in the anti-monopoly field. Since then, the anti-monopoly civil public interest litigation system has formally entered the field of anti-monopoly law as a new system. However, the revised Law does not make detailed provisions on the civil public interest litigation system. In terms of the provisions on the subject of public interest litigation, the current law only stipulates that the procuratorial organ is the subject that can initiate public interest litigation, which makes it difficult for some cases infringing on social public interests to be well resolved through public interest litigation. Therefore, this paper will take Article 55 of the Civil Procedure Law and Article 47 of the Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests as the basis point, and briefly introduce the relevant provisions on the subject qualification of the anti-monopoly civil public interest procedure law in foreign jurisdictions. Based on this view, it is necessary for the main body of anti-monopoly public litigation to become more diversified to ensure that the main body of litigation can play substantial effect in judicial practice.At the same time, it is necessary to improve the existing procedures and improve the related supporting subjects' difficulties in providing evidence and the lack of litigation incentives , so as to provide ideas for the improvement of the subject qualification of public litigation in the field of anti-monopoly law.