On June 27, 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, which will come into effect on October 15, 2025. This law, serving as a fundamental regulation for promoting fair competition, standardizing market competition order, and maintaining the healthy operation of the market economy, has undergone significant development. Since its implementation in 1993, it has been modified twice in 2017 and 2019, and now the third revision has been completed.

The newly revised law consists of five chapters: General Provisions, Unfair Competition Acts, Investigation of Suspected Unfair Competition Acts, Legal Liability, and Supplementary Provisions. It stipulates that the state will improve the anti-unfair competition regulatory system, strengthen law enforcement and judicial actions, safeguard the market competition order, and build a unified, open, competitive, and orderly market system.

This revision is particularly timely in response to the new developments in the Internet industry, as it directly addresses the emerging issues of online unfair competition and further refines the fair competition rules in the digital economy field. For instance, it newly stipulates that platform operators are prohibited from forcing or indirectly forcing in-platform operators to sell goods at prices below cost according to their pricing rules, so as not to disrupt the market competition order.

In addition, the revised law clarifies the obligations of platform operators in handling unfair competition behaviors of in-platform operators. Platform operators are required to clarify the fair competition rules within the platform in service agreements and transaction rules, establish a reporting, complaint, and dispute-handling mechanism for unfair competition, and take necessary disposal measures in a timely manner when discovering such behaviors, while also preserving relevant records and reporting to the supervision and inspection departments as required.

Moreover, the law has made regulations on unfair competition behaviors such as infringement of data rights and malicious transactions, and further elaborated on various manifestations of malicious transactions in practice. For example, it is specified that "operators shall not abuse platform rules to directly or instigate others to conduct false transactions, false evaluations, or malicious returns against other operators, so as not to damage the legitimate rights and interests of other operators and disrupt the market competition order."

This revision of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law is expected to play a crucial role in promoting fair competition in the market, protecting the legitimate rights and interests of operators and consumers, and promoting the high-quality development of the economy. It provides a more solid legal foundation for businesses to compete on a level playing field and for the market to operate in an orderly manner.