Chinese lawmakers on Friday passed a revised version of the anti-unfair competition law, which will take effect on October 15, 2025.
The revised law, adopted at a session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, consists of five chapters that include general provisions, acts of unfair competition, investigation of suspected violations, legal liabilities and supplementary provisions.
The law stipulates that China will improve the rules and systems to combat unfair competition, strengthen law enforcement and judicial work in this area, maintain the order of market competition, and promote a unified, open, competitive and orderly market system.
"The revision of the anti-unfair competition law focuses on several aspects: fully implementing the CPC Central Committee's spirit on comprehensively addressing issues such as rat-race competition and resolving overdue payments to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It actively responds to new situations and problems in the current anti-unfair competition efforts, refines the types and identification criteria of unfair competition practices and increases regulations covering areas like keyword search, infringement of data rights, fake transactions, fraudulent reviews, malicious returns, and platform accountability. The goal is to foster an economic order that is both flexible enough to encourage vitality and regulated enough to ensure control, while scientifically balancing the relationship between the anti-unfair competition law and other laws such as the Civil Code, anti-monopoly law, trademark law, consumer rights protection law, and e-commerce law," said Gao Lina, deputy director of the Social Law Office under the Legislative Affairs Commission of the NPC Standing Committee.
China's revised anti-unfair competition law to take effect Oct. 15
