China News Agency, Beijing, December 26 (Reporter Liu Liang) According to the State Administration of Market Regulation of China on the 26th, the well-known academic resource information platform China HowNet was fined 87.6 million yuan (RMB, the same below) for abusing its dominant market position.
In May 2022, the State Administration for Market Regulation filed a case for investigation into HowNet’s suspected monopolistic behavior in accordance with the Anti-Monopoly Law.
After investigation, HowNet has a dominant position in the Chinese academic literature online database service market in China.
Since 2014, HowNet has abused its dominant position to carry out monopolistic behavior.
One is to implement the behavior of selling its database services at unfairly high prices by continuously and substantially increasing service prices, splitting databases and raising prices in disguise; the other is to restrict academic journal publishing units and colleges and universities by signing exclusive cooperation agreements Authorize any third party to use academic literature data such as academic journals, doctoral and master's dissertations, and adopt various reward and punishment measures to ensure exclusive cooperation implementation.
The investigation shows that CNKI implements unfairly high prices, restricts transactions, excludes, and restricts competition in the Chinese academic literature network database service market, infringes on the legitimate rights and interests of users, and affects the innovation and development of relevant markets and academic exchanges and dissemination. Article 22 Abuse of market dominance prohibited by items (1) and (4) of Paragraph 1 of Article 22, such as "selling goods at unfairly high prices" and "restricting counterparties to transactions with them without justifiable reasons" Behavior.
According to the provisions of Articles 57 and 59 of the "Anti-Monopoly Law", comprehensively considering factors such as the nature, degree, duration, and elimination of the consequences of illegal acts of HowNet, on the 26th, the State Administration for Market Regulation lawfully An administrative penalty decision was made, ordering HowNet to stop illegal activities, and imposing a fine of 5% of its domestic sales of 1.752 billion yuan in China in 2021, totaling 87.6 million yuan.
At the same time, adhere to the equal emphasis on regulation by law and promotion of development, supervise HowNet to fully implement rectification measures and eliminate the consequences of illegal acts, and require HowNet to carry out comprehensive rectification around the termination of exclusive cooperation, lighten user burdens, strengthen internal compliance management, etc., to promote healthy industry regulation Innovation and development.
On the same day, HowNet issued an announcement stating that, in accordance with the decision on administrative penalties, and in combination with opinions and suggestions from all aspects of the society, HowNet has formulated a policy to thoroughly rectify exclusive cooperation, significantly reduce service prices, protect the legitimate rights and interests of authors, continue to optimize related services, and comprehensively strengthen compliance construction. and other 15 corrective measures.
At present, 15 rectification measures have been disclosed to the public and are under the supervision of all parties.
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