On June 27, 2025, the 16th Session of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People's Congress voted to pass the newly revised Anti-Unfair Competition Law of the People's Republic of China. The law will officially take effect on October 15, 2025. This revision marks the third major amendment since the law's initial implementation in 1993. The number of articles in the newly revised law has increased from the original 33 to 41, covering sections including General Provisions, Unfair Competition Acts, Investigation of Suspected Unfair Competition Acts, Legal Liability, and Supplementary Provisions. Below are the main contents and highlights of the revision as officially interpreted.
Main Contents and Highlights of the Revision to the Anti-Unfair Competition Law
1. Clarifying the Overall Requirements for Combating Unfair Competition:
Explicitly adding "prevention" of unfair competition acts as a legislative purpose.
Positively emphasizing that business operators shall "participate in market competition fairly".
Clearly stating that anti-unfair competition work must uphold the leadership of the Communist Party of China.
Making corresponding modifications to the description of the duties of the anti-unfair competition work coordination mechanism.
2. Improving Provisions on Confusion-Type Unfair Competition Acts:
Explicitly defining the unauthorized use of others' influential "new media account names, application names, or icons" as confusion acts.
Enhancing coordination with the Trademark Law, clarifying that unauthorized use of others' registered trademarks or unregistered well-known trademarks as trade names in business names, causing misidentification of goods or a specific connection, constitutes a confusion act.
Regulating the use of search keywords, stipulating that setting others' product names, business names (including abbreviations, trade names, etc.), registered trademarks, or unregistered well-known trademarks as search keywords, causing misidentification of goods or a specific connection, constitutes a confusion act.
Prohibiting business operators from assisting others in implementing confusion acts.
3. Refining Provisions on Unfair Competition Acts such as Commercial Bribery, False Advertising, Improper Prize Sales, and Commercial Disparagement:
Adding provisions prohibiting relevant units and individuals from accepting bribes.
Expanding the targets misled by false advertising from "consumers" to "consumers and other business operators," and strengthening regulation against false transactions and inflated ratings, explicitly prohibiting assisting others in false advertising through "false evaluations."
Stipulating that once a prize promotion begins, business operators cannot arbitrarily change the prize sales information.
Prohibiting business operators from "instructing others" to engage in commercial disparagement, and expanding the targets of commercial disparagement from "competitors" to "other business operators."
4. Improving Provisions on Online Unfair Competition Acts:
Clearly prohibiting business operators from utilizing data and algorithms, technology, platform rules, etc., to implement relevant unfair competition acts.
Adding provisions on infringing data rights and interests, explicitly prohibiting business operators from obtaining or using data lawfully held by others through fraudulent, coercive means, or by circumventing or destroying technical protection measures, thereby harming the legitimate rights and interests of other operators and disrupting market competition order.
Explicitly prohibiting business operators from abusing platform rules to directly or instruct others to conduct false transactions, false reviews, malicious returns, etc., against other operators.
Adding obligations for platform operators to address unfair competition acts by operators within their platforms. Platform operators shall clearly define fair competition rules within platform service agreements and transaction rules, establish mechanisms for reporting, complaining about, and handling unfair competition disputes, and guide and regulate operators within the platform to compete fairly according to law.
Upon discovering unfair competition acts by operators within the platform, platform operators shall promptly take necessary measures according to law, preserve relevant records, and report to the supervision and inspection departments of the people's government at or above the county level where the platform operator is domiciled, as stipulated.
5. Adding Provisions on Governing "Involution-Style" Competition:
The newly revised law improves the system for governing "involution-style" competition in two aspects:
Stipulating that a fair competition review system should be established and improved, strengthens fair competition review work according to law, and ensures all types of business operators use factors of production equally and participate in market competition fairly according to law.
Strengthening platform responsibility, stipulating that platform operators shall not force or coerce operators within the platform, through disguised means, to sell goods below cost according to their pricing rules, thereby disrupting market competition order.
6. Adding Provisions on Resolving the Problem of Arrears to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs):
Stipulating that large enterprises and other operators shall not abuse their advantageous position to demand that SMEs accept transaction conditions with obviously unreasonable payment terms, methods, conditions, and liability for breach of contract, resulting in arrears for goods, projects, services, etc., owed to SMEs.
Stipulating that supervision and inspection departments of people's governments at or above the provincial level shall investigate and handle cases where large enterprises and other operators abuse their advantageous position to default on payments owed to SMEs, according to law.
7. Improving Supervision Measures and Legal Liability:
Adding a notification and interview system. If a business operator is suspected of violating this law, the supervision and inspection department may interview its responsible person, requiring them to explain the situation and propose improvement measures.
Strengthening the confidentiality obligations of relevant departments and personnel, stipulating that supervision and inspection departments and their staff have a legal obligation to keep confidential trade secrets, personal privacy, and personal information learned during investigations.
Clarifying the calculation method for civil compensation damages caused by unfair competition acts as "determined based on the actual losses suffered by the infringed party or the benefits gained by the infringer due to the infringement".
Stipulating legal liability for selling relevant illegal goods. Simultaneously, if the seller did not know the goods sold were illegal and can prove the goods were legally obtained and identify the supplier, the supervision and inspection department shall order the cessation of sales and not impose administrative penalties.
Adding provisions on the legal liability of bribe recipients, and the legal liability to be borne by the legal representative, principal responsible person, and directly responsible personnel of a business operator when they bear personal responsibility for bribery.
Reasonably adjusting penalty severity, for example, appropriately raising the maximum fines for acts such as trade secret infringement, commercial disparagement, and online unfair competition; removing the minimum fine for false advertising acts.
8. Adding Provisions on the Extraterritorial Application of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law:
Where unfair competition acts stipulated by this law are committed outside the territory of the People's Republic of China, disrupting competition order within the domestic market and harming the legitimate rights and interests of domestic business operators or consumers, they shall be handled in accordance with this law and relevant laws.
Note: This text is mainly translated from China Court Website. Only for reference.
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