Anti-Unfair Competition Law Newly Revised
ISSUING AUTHORITY:
The National People's Congress
DATE OF ISSUANCE:
June 27, 2025
EFFECTIVE DATE:
October 15, 2025
On June 27, 2025, the 16th Standing Committee meeting of the 14th National People's Congress passed the newly revised Anti-Unfair Competition Law, which will come into effect on October 15, 2025. The newly revised Anti-Unfair Competition Law consists of five chapters, namely the general provisions, unfair competition acts, investigation of suspected unfair competition acts, legal liability, and supplementary Provisions, with a total of 41 articles. The newly revised Anti-Unfair Competition Law has the following main contents and highlights:
First, clarify the overall requirements for anti-unfair competition
1. Add prevention of unfair competition behaviors as a legislative purpose;
2. Emphasize positively that business operators should participate fairly in market competition;
3. Clarify that anti-unfair competition work should adhere to Communist Party of China’s leadership; and,
4. Revise the description of the responsibilities of the anti-unfair competition work coordination mechanism.
Second, improve the regulations on confusing deceptive competition behaviors
1. Clearly define the unauthorized use of others' "new media account names, application names or icons" as a deceptive act;
2. Ensure compatibility with the Trademark Law by clearly stating that the unauthorized use of others' registered trademarks, unregistered well-known trademarks as the business name's font, leading to the mistaken belief that it is someone else's product or having a specific connection with others, constitutes a deceptive act;
3. Standardize the use of search keywords, stipulating that setting others' product names, business names (including abbreviations, font, etc.), registered trademarks, unregistered well-known trademarks, etc. as search keywords, causing the mistaken belief that it is someone else's product or having a specific connection with others, constitutes a deceptive act; and,
4. Prohibit business operators from assisting others in committing deceptive acts.
Third, refine the regulations on unfair competition behaviors such as commercial bribery, false promotion, improper prize-based sales, and commercial defamation
1. Add provisions that prohibit units and individuals from accepting bribes;
2. Expand the target of misleading behavior in false promotion from consumers to "consumers and other operators", and strengthen the regulation of duplicate orders and fake reviews, clearly prohibiting the use of "false evaluations" to assist others in false promotion;
3. Stipulate that after the start of a prize-based activity, operators shall not arbitrarily change the information of prize-based sales; and,
4. Stipulate that operators shall not "direct others" to engage in commercial defamation, and extend the target of commercial defamation from "competitors" to "other operators".
Fourth, improve the regulations on unfair competition behaviors in the online environment
1. Clearly stipulate that operators shall not utilize data, algorithms, technologies, platform rules, etc. to engage in unfair competition activities;
2. Add provisions regarding the infringement of data rights, clearly stating that operators shall not obtain, use, or damage the data legally held by other operators through fraudulent, coercive, bypassing or disrupting technical management measures, thereby harming the legitimate rights and interests of other operators and disrupting market competition;
3. Clearly prohibit operators from abusing platform rules to directly or by instructing others to carry out false transactions, false evaluations, or malicious returns against other operators;
4. Add provisions that platform operators have the obligation to handle unfair competition behaviors of platform internal operators. Platform operators should clearly define fair competition rules within the platform service agreement and transaction rules, establish a mechanism for reporting unfair competition complaints and dispute resolution, and guide and regulate platform internal operators to compete fairly in accordance with the law; and,
5. If unfair competition behaviors are discovered by platform internal operators, necessary and appropriate measures should be taken in accordance with the law, relevant records should be preserved, and reports should be made to the relevant supervision department of the county-level or above local government where the platform operator is located.
Fifth, Add provisions on governing "internal competition"
The newly revised Anti-Unfair Competition Law has improved the system for governing "internal competition" in two aspects:
1. It stipulates that the state should establish and improve the fair competition review system, strengthen fair competition review work in accordance with the law, and ensure that all business operators use production factors and participate in market competition in an equal and lawful manner; and,
2. It strengthens the responsibility of platforms, stipulating that platform operators shall not force or covertly force platform internal operators to sell goods at prices lower than costs, thereby disrupting market competition order.
Sixth, add provisions on addressing the issue of overdue payments to small and medium-sized enterprises
1. It is stipulated that large enterprises and other operators shall not abuse their dominant positions to require small and medium-sized enterprises to accept transaction conditions such as unreasonable payment terms, methods, conditions, and liability for breach of contract, thereby delaying payments for goods, projects, services, etc. of small and medium-sized enterprises; and,
2. It is stipulated that if large enterprises and other operators abuse their dominant positions to delay payments to small and medium-sized enterprises, the supervisory departments of the provincial-level or above government shall investigate and handle the matter in accordance with the law.
Seventh, Improving Regulatory Measures and Legal Responsibilities
1. Add the admonition system. If an operator is suspected of violating the provisions of this law, the supervisory department can conduct an admonition with the relevant responsible person，requiring them to explain the situation and propose improvement measures；
2. Strengthen the confidentiality obligations of relevant departments and personnel, stipulating that the supervisory department and its staff have the legal obligation to keep confidential the business secrets, personal privacy, and personal information they learn during the investigation;
3. Clearly define the calculation method for the civil compensation amount resulting from unfair competition as "determined based on the actual losses suffered by the infringed party or the profits obtained by the infringer from the infringement"；
4. Specify the legal liability for selling illegal goods, and at the same time, stipulate that if the seller does not know that the goods sold are illegal and can prove that the goods were obtained legally and explain the provider, the supervisory department shall order to stop the sale and shall not impose administrative penalties; and,
5. Add provisions on the legal responsibilities of those who accept bribes, as well as the personal legal responsibilities of the legal representative, main person in charge, and direct responsible persons of the operator when they bear personal responsibility for bribery.
Eighth, provisions for the extraterritorial application of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law have also been added.
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