SAMR Convenes Meeting on Rectifying "Inward-Looking" Competition and Price Law Amendments

On July 7, the State Administration for Market Regulation held a press conference on the in-depth rectification of "involutionary" competition in the first half of 2026. Reporters learned at the conference that the State Administration for Market Regulation is actively promoting the revision of the Price Law, intending to further improve the rules for identifying unfair pricing practices such as predatory pricing, and will also make targeted revisions and improvements to the "Implementation Measures of the Fair Competition Review Regulations".

  At the press conference, Wang Shizhong, Director of the Competition Coordination Department of the State Administration for Market Regulation, presented a set of data showing that since the first half of the year, the State Administration for Market Regulation has launched 16 special campaigns focusing on strengthening regulatory enforcement, deepening platform governance, and enhancing source regulation, clarifying 39 expected outcomes, and the rectification work has made positive progress.

  In terms of improving institutional standards and consolidating the foundation of legal protection, the "Regulations on the Protection of Trade Secrets" and the "Measures for the Management of Serious Violations and Dishonesty Lists in Market Supervision and Management" were revised and promulgated; based on the investigation and assessment of the market competition situation in the food delivery industry, the "Ten Rules for Subsidy Behavior of Food Delivery Platforms (Draft for Comments)" were publicly released; and the "Measures for the Supervision and Management of Rules for Online Trading Platforms" and the "Measures for the Supervision and Management of Live Streaming E-commerce" were officially implemented, drawing compliance red lines for platform behavior.

  Regarding the crackdown on unfair competition, the State Administration for Market Regulation has investigated and dealt with a series of cases involving "ghost food delivery," imposing fines and confiscations totaling 3.597 billion yuan on seven e-commerce platforms, including Pinduoduo, Meituan, JD.com, Ele.me (Taobao Flash Sale), Douyin, Taobao, and Tmall. The legal representatives and food safety directors of these seven platforms were also simultaneously fined 19.6874 million yuan, severely punishing platforms for condoning "ghost food delivery" activities. The Administration also investigated and dealt with a series of cases involving "specially supplied liquor," thoroughly investigating the sources of illegal production and sales and eradicating the illegal chain. Furthermore, the Administration announced its supervision of Lalamove's implementation of anti-monopoly compliance rectification, including ceasing the use of algorithms to lower freight rates, completely abolishing the exclusive vehicle sticker rule, and reducing the platform's overall commission rate from approximately 11% to approximately 9%, which can reduce the burden on drivers by more than 1.3 billion yuan annually.

  Meanwhile, the State Administration for Market Regulation approved Tencent Holdings Limited's acquisition of Himalaya FM's shares with additional restrictive conditions, made solid progress in handling the Ctrip monopoly case, and investigated and dealt with cases of platform companies infringing on the interests of small and medium-sized enterprises and squeezing out the real economy, as well as cases of monopoly and unfair competition, in accordance with the law, to maintain a fair and competitive market order; and accelerated the handling of a series of cases involving counterfeit "Chint" trademark low-voltage electrical appliances, helping to create a good atmosphere of honest business practices.

  The next step will be to further strengthen the policy package to address "involutionary" competition. Tang Kexin, Deputy Director of the Department of Laws and Regulations of the State Administration for Market Regulation, stated that the State Administration for Market Regulation is actively promoting the revision of the Price Law, intending to further improve the rules for identifying unfair pricing practices such as predatory pricing, enrich price supervision and enforcement measures, improve the legal liability system, and prevent and stop businesses from engaging in bottomless price wars and price manipulation. The State Administration for Market Regulation will also make targeted revisions and improvements to the "Implementation Measures of the Fair Competition Review Regulations." (Reporter Wang Wenbo)