论反垄断诉讼中的专家证人

On Expert Witnesses in Antitrust Litigation

在反垄断诉讼中,涉案商品服务的相关市场如何界定、当事方的限制性行为是否具有排除限制竞争效果等问题,往往成为双方对事实争议的焦点问题。而这些事实问题并非普通的事实问题,而是科学事实问题,需要通过经济学分析、社会学分析等科学方法加以论证。为辅助法庭对案件事实进行查明,双方可以申请具有专业资质的专家提供专家意见或证词,对所主张的事实加以论证。然而,法庭需要通过明确专家证人资质要求,来筛选真正能够对事实认定起到辅助作用的专家。此外,法庭还需要确立证词可采信性标准,审查评估专家证人证词的可信度,最终决定对专家证人证词是否采信。法学专家不能成为专家证人对科学事实进行论证,法官可以在判决书参考法学专家观点来增强判决说理,但法律条文仍应由法官来解释。

In antitrust litigation,issues such as how the relevant market for the goods and services in question is defined and whether the parties'restrictive behaviour has the effect of excluding or restricting competition often become the focus of factual disputes between the parties.These factual issues are not ordinary factual issues,but scientific factual issues,which need to be argued through and proved by economic analysis,sociological analysis and other scientific methods.In order to assist the court in ascertaining the facts of the case,the parties may apply for expert opinions from professionally qualified experts to prove the facts asserted.However,the court needs to define the qualifications of the expert witnesses in order to select experts who can truly assist in the fact-finding process.Besides,the court also needs to establish criteria for reviewing and assessing the credibility and admissibility of expert witness testimony,and ultimately decide whether or not to admit the expert opinion.J urisprudence experts cannot be expert witnesses who argue scientific facts;judges can refer to the views of jurisprudence experts in their judgements to enhance the reasoning of the judgement,but laws should still be interpreted by judges.