实质主义认定标准下转售价格维持的类型化认定

Type-Oriented Determination of the Nature of Resale Price Maintenance from the Standard Substantivist

受《中华人民共和国反垄断法》第18条影响,人民法院或执法机构对转售价格维持的认定遵循了形式主义的认定标准,若涉案行为具备转售价格维持协议的形式则只能构成纵向垄断协议。形式主义的认定标准难以揭示涉案行为的本质,造成行为定性与处罚决定相互矛盾等弊端,不利于反垄断法的体系化适用。实质主义的认定标准依据涉案行为的实质机制认定行为;实质主义的认定标准可准确认定违法行为,避免上述弊端,克服形式主义的认定标准的不足,因此转售价格维持的认定应依据实质主义的认定标准。在实质主义的认定标准下,转售价格维持应进行类型化认定,“滥用市场支配地位行为与垄断协议的两分法”是类型化认定的基本思路。在前一类型下,经营者滥用市场支配地位强迫交易相对人签订转售价格维持协议的行为构成滥用市场支配地位行为,寡头经营者共同从事的转售价格维持可能构成共同市场支配地位的滥用。在后一类型下,当协议的一方经营者构成横向垄断协议的组织者或实质帮助者时,转售价格维持构成横向垄断协议;实施协同行为的经营者的共同交易相对人可作为协同行为的组织者,此时转售价格维持构成协同行为;在一定条件下,上下游经营者基于通谋达成的转售价格维持构成纵向垄断协议。

Affected by Article 18 of Chinese Anti Monopoly Law,the determination of the nature of resale price maintenance by people’s courts or law enforcement agencies follows the formalistic standard that as long as the involved behavior has the form of an agreement on resale price maintenance,it constitutes a vertical monopoly agreement.The formalistic standard hardly reveals the essence of the involved behavior,resulting in defects such as a contradiction between the nature determination of a behavior and the decision of punishment,which is not conducive to the systematic application of the anti-monopoly law.The substantivist standard for nature determination is based on the substantive mechanism of the involved behavior to determinate the nature of a behavior.The substantivist standard can be used to accurately determine illegal behaviors,avoiding the above-mentioned drawbacks,and overcoming the shortcomings of the formalism,therefore,the nature determination of resale price maintenance should be carried out according to the standard of substantivism.From the substantivist Standard,the resale price maintenance should be determined in a typed-oriented way,and the dichotomy between a behavior of abusing market dominance and a monopoly agreement is the basic approach to such type-oriented nature determination.In terms of the former type,an operator’s behavior of abusing their market dominance to force trading counterparties to sign a resale price maintenance agreement constitutes the abuse of market dominance and the resale price maintenance jointly conducted by oligopolistic operators can constitute the abuse of common market dominance.In terms of the latter type,when one party to the agreement constitutes the organizer or substantive helper of a horizontal monopoly agreement,the resale price maintenance constitutes a horizontal monopoly agreement;The same trading counterpart of operators who implement collaborative behavior can be regarded as the organizer of the collaborative behavior,and at this time,the resale price maintenance constitutes a collaborative behavior;Under certain conditions,the resale price maintenance reached by upstream and downstream operators through collusion constitutes a vertical m onopoly agreement.