Experts say medicine may be the next antitrust target

2013-07-03 source: at the beginning of this year, Guizhou Moutai and Wuliangye were also fined by the national development and Reform Commission for their violation of the anti monopoly law after the first anti-monopoly ticket was issued by the first financial daily to six panel manufacturers including Samsung, LG of South Korea and Youda and Qimei of Taiwan Nowadays, foreign milk powder enterprises such as heshengyuan are becoming the latest target of the anti-monopoly investigation of the national development and Reform Commission The industry insiders also said that the pharmaceutical industry is expected to be the object of the next anti-monopoly investigation of the national development and Reform Commission In fact, this is the second time that the national development and Reform Commission has investigated the industry on the basis of vertical price monopoly in China At the beginning of this year, Maotai and Wuliangye were fined a total of 449 million yuan by the national development and Reform Commission for price monopoly, including 247 million yuan by Maotai and 202 million yuan by Wuliangye The above fines accounted for 1% of the sales of the two liquor companies in 2012 This time, the antimonopoly Bureau said that there is evidence that the price of these milk powder enterprises' products in China market is on the high side, with a price increase of about 30% since 2008, which has been suspected of vertical price monopoly The two investigations by the national development and Reform Commission are based on Article 14 of the antimonopoly law, which prohibits the operators from reaching the following monopoly agreements with the counterparties: (1) fixing the price of goods resold to the third party; (2) limiting the minimum price of goods resold to the third party This regulation makes enterprises suspected of vertical monopoly on the fixed price and the minimum price of dealers However, the anti-monopoly investigation and punishment carried out by the national development and Reform Commission on relevant enterprises in accordance with Article 14 also caused disputes in the industry "To set the minimum price and stipulate the price to dealers, every FMCG enterprise will basically do it First, stabilize the price system and ensure that dealers at all levels can get the profits they deserve In the FMCG industry, according to the three-level channel, generally, one group of distributors will get 5% gross profit, the second group of distributors will get 10% gross profit, and the highest profit will be about 30% for the three groups of retailers The lower the channel, the higher the gross profit margin The second is to prevent cross regional goods Due to the different regional economic level and sales situation, enterprises have different promotional policies for each region, so there are price differences between regions Dealers often use price differences to cross goods, and cross regional goods will make the sales of enterprises confused and regional markets out of control, so enterprises will make decisions Guarantee the minimum price and fix the dealer price to maintain the normal market price " A dairy industry person said However, Zhu danpeng, a researcher at China Food Business Research Institute, said: "although enterprises will set a minimum price, most of them can't implement it in place Only some large companies with strong dealers can implement it In fact, a strict and stable price system is one of their advantages in the market competition." "Although the phenomenon of fixed price and limited minimum price is prevalent in many industries in China, it may not be legal if it is prevalent." Wang Junlin, head of competition and antitrust legal affairs at Beijing Yingke Law Firm, said In fact, in foreign countries, due to the strict enforcement of anti-monopoly law, it is rare to hear about the standard price, and more is the suggested retail price "In foreign countries, such vertical monopoly agreements are prohibited, and enterprises dare not do it openly However, China's Antimonopoly Law has just been implemented in 2008, which is not as mature as that in Europe and America " Wang Junlin thinks Wang Junlin said: "this kind of manipulation seems to be an internal regulation for enterprises to regulate sales order In fact, upstream manufacturers seek to establish price barriers through pressure on downstream distributors, thus seriously weakening the internal competition of the same brand and damaging the interests of consumers Within the same brand, manufacturers, sellers and suppliers have formed a trinity of interest alliance to control market prices If there is full competition between dealers, their prices will not be inflated and consumers will benefit from it " "I don't think these surveys will have an essential impact on the industry, and price management will exist in every enterprise, which is also the work that every enterprise must do Only a stable price system can ensure that dealers at all levels get the profits they deserve," said a person who asked not to be named The purpose of the investigation on brands such as heshengyuan by the national development and Reform Commission is its high price positioning " Wang Junlin said: "from the investigation of liquor industry and LCD panel industry by the national development and Reform Commission, there will be more actions in the future and more and more law enforcement efforts will be made in the next step According to its estimates, medicine may be the next key industry in the anti-monopoly investigation " According to a professor of the University of international business and economics, "vertical monopoly also exists in other industries, which means that in addition to high-end liquor and milk powder industries, other products and service industries must also consider compliance issues in this regard." At the end of 2012, the national development and Reform Commission issued the first ticket for price monopoly of overseas enterprises Six large international panel manufacturers, including Samsung and LG of South Korea, Qimei and Youda of Taiwan, were punished by the national development and Reform Commission for monopolizing the price of LCD panel from 2001 to 2006, with an economic sanction of 353 million yuan After the vertical monopoly has been repeatedly used as one of the price monopoly investigation methods by the national development and Reform Commission, the monopoly behavior of large companies will be restricted to a certain extent In the future, the triangle game of producers, distributors and consumers will tend to be even, because the price control method, one of their trumps, has been cancelled However, the extent to which the investigation of monopoly agreement by the national development and Reform Commission can change the existing vertical monopoly agreement is still unknown Even if the direct price control is cancelled, large companies can also avoid the risk of anti-monopoly by means of intellectual property, rebate, margin, supply and other means, and achieve the purpose of strengthening the control of dealers In the future, the NDRC may face difficulties in providing evidence