ABSTRACT
In recent years, criminalizing business conduct has attracted the attention of policy makers around the world. ‘Economic crime’ is, however, not a new concept; dating back to 1890, the Sherman Act in the US has already defi ned illegal cartel conduct as a crime. From an economic perspective, criminalization of anti-competitive behavior can reach the goal of deterring future infringers. This chapter investigates whether criminalization could be a solution to improve the enforcement of antitrust law in China. The Anti-Monopoly Law (AML) in China entered into force in August 2008 and since then a major issue being debated among public policy makers (Zhao 2008 ) and academic scholars (Van den Bergh and Faure 2011 ) is how this law could be better implemented and enforced. This chapter aims at contributing to this debate and discusses whether and to what extent criminalization could be applied to the enforcement of cartel agreements under the Chinese AML.
