Today, June 27, 2025, the third amendment to the Anti-Unfair Competition Law of the PRC was passed by the 16th Session of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People's Congress (NPCSC) and will take effect on October 15, 2025.
China's current Anti-Unfair Competition Law was initially adopted in September 1993 and took effect in December 1993. It underwent revisions in 2017 and 2019, and now comprises 33 articles across 5 chapters. The latest amendment was first included in the State Council's Legislative Work Plan in 2022. In November 2022, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) released a draft for comments regarding the amendment to Anti-Unfair Competition Law. In September 2024, the State Council's executive meeting approved the revised draft and decided to submit it to the NPCSC for reviews. In December 2024, the NPCSC conducted the first review on the Draft Amendment to Anti-Unfair Competition Law (hereinafter referred to as the "Draft Amendment") and publicly solicited opinions. Today, after the second review, the revised Anti-Unfair Competition Law was passed by vote. This occurred more rapidly than our previous predictions, indicating a high degree of consensus regarding the revision content.
The final version of the revised Anti-Unfair Competition Law, remains largely consistent with the Draft Amendment, comprising 5 chapters and 41 articles. However, further revisions and refinements have been made to specific provisions and wording. For instance, prohibited behaviors like malicious returns have been added. The revisions mainly focus on: (1) Refining the regulation of confusion behaviors, including using others' trademarks as trade names, employing others' names as search keywords, etc.; (2) Strengthening the governance of commercial bribery, prohibiting the acceptance of bribes in transactions; and (3) Enhancing the supervision system for online unfair competition, bolstering platform regulatory responsibilities by requiring platforms to clarify fair competition rules in their transaction policies, establish reporting, complaint and dispute resolution mechanisms against unfair competition, guide and regulate the operators in the platforms to compete fairly in accordance with the law and to promptly take necessary measures against unfair competition acts. It also prohibits operators from using data, algorithms, technology, platform rules, etc., to engage in unfair competition such as malicious transactions. Additionally, the amendment improves provisions concerning false advertising, improper prize-linked sales, business defamation, the abuse of advantageous positions to harm the legitimate rights and interests of small and medium-sized enterprises, and platform predatory pricing.
Notably, during the revision process, the SAMR also released the Interim Provisions on Online Anti-Unfair Competition, which align with the focuses and trends of this revision regarding emerging forms of online unfair competition.
For more details on the amendments, we will subsequently offer more comprehensive analysis and commentary
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