经营者集中救济“防火墙”措施的实施与监督

Implementation and Supervision of the“Firewall”Remedy of Merger Control

防火墙是附加限制性条件实施经营者集中案件中常用的救济措施,指义务人及集中后实体为控制竞争性敏感信息的反竞争流动设置的信息隔离机制。防火墙主要表现为信息的直接隔离与间接隔离,其既可以作为独立的行为性救济措施预防封锁效应和协调效应,也可以用于保障“保持独立运营”条件的落实及剥离资产的独立性。实施与监督是防火墙应用中的两个核心面向。不过,防火墙的实施存在指引性不强、方式模糊的问题,还具有损害合并效率的风险,需要在广泛适用防火墙指南手册的基础上优化防火墙实施方式,并设置有限制的防火墙“白名单”。防火墙的监督机制则面临监督主体适格性存疑、监督方式模糊以及监督效果差的困境。对此,可以设置专门的防火墙监督小组、严格筛选监督主体,进一步完善监督方式,并由执法机构加强对监督工作的管理。

A Firewall is a commonly used behavioral remedy measure in the case of concentration of business operators with additional restrictive conditions.It refers to the information isolation mechanism set by the obligor and the entity after concentration to control the anti-competitive flow of competitive sensitive information.The firewall is mainly manifested as the direct isolation and indirect isolation of information.It can not only be used as an independent behavioral remedy to prevent the blocking effect and coordination effect,but also be used to ensure the implementation of the“long-term separation”condition and the independence of the divestiture assets.Implementation and supervision are two core aspects of the firewall.However,the implementation of the firewall has the problems of weak guidance and vague methods,and also has the risk of damaging the efficiency of the merger.It is necessary to optimize the implementation of the firewall based on the extensive application of the firewall guide manual,and set up a restricted firewall“white list”.The supervision mechanism of the firewall faces with the dilemma of the qualification of the supervision subject,the fuzzy supervision method and the poor supervision effect.In this regard,we can set up a special firewall supervision team,strictly screen the supervision subjects,further improve the supervision methods,and strengthen the management of supervision by law enforcement agencies.