April 26 is the 26th World Intellectual Property Day. The Supreme People's Court recently released a series of typical cases of intellectual property protection and anti-monopoly, which effectively safeguarded the fair competition order in the market and protected the social innovation environment by anti-monopoly and cracking down on malicious intellectual property litigation.
Among them , the typical anti-monopoly cases include "Cement Association organized 13 enterprises to engage in monopoly and fined 500,000 yuan" , as follows:
a provincial cement association organized 13 cement enterprises in the region to raise prices uniformly and engage in monopoly operation.
A provincial market supervision and administration Bureau received a report that the local cement association organized the joint price increase of cement enterprises in the industry.
After investigation, it was found that the 13 cement companies involved in the case, under the convening, planning, manipulation and command of the Provincial Cement Association, negotiated many times to raise the cement price and reached a consensus. Finally, the companies involved in the case actually raised the cement price by 20 to 30 yuan per ton.
According to the investigation, the cement sales of the cement enterprises involved accounted for 80% of the market share of the province.
A provincial market supervision and administration Bureau believes that the acts of the cement enterprises involved constitute monopolistic acts prohibited by China's anti-monopoly law, and imposes administrative fines on the cement enterprises involved according to 3% of their sales in the previous year. It also found that the Provincial Cement Association violated Article 16 of the Anti-monopoly Law implemented in 2008, which stipulates that "trade associations shall not organize operators of the industry to engage in monopolistic acts prohibited by this chapter", and ordered the Cement Association to stop its illegal activities and impose a fine of 500000 yuan.
The Cement Association refused to accept it and applied for administrative reconsideration, which was maintained by the State Administration of Market Supervision and Administration after reconsideration. The Cement Association also filed an administrative lawsuit, and the court of first instance decided to reject the claim of the Cement Association.
The Cement Association appealed to the Supreme People's Court again. The Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People's Court heard the case. Judge He Jun of the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme
People's Court: In this case, the Cement Association organized and promoted 13 major local cement enterprises to adjust the price of cement by setting up WeChat groups, convening industry meetings and organizing offline communication meetings. The Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme
People's Court finally found that the Cement Association had violated the provisions of the Anti-monopoly Law that trade associations should not organize operators in the industry to engage in monopolistic acts, and the judgment rejected the appeal of the Cement Association and upheld the original judgment. Judge He Jun of the Intellectual Property Court of
the Supreme People's Court: For the trade association involved in this case, according to the 2008 Anti-monopoly Law applicable at that time, if the trade association organizes the operators of the industry to reach a monopoly agreement, a fine of less than 500000 yuan shall be imposed. The anti-monopoly law amended in 2022 raised the upper limit of fines to 3 million yuan, five times higher, and the penalties were further strengthened.
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