试论对价格跟随行为的反垄断法规制

价格跟随行为,也叫价格领导制,一般出现在寡占市场中。反垄断法并不禁止寡占企业基于寡占的相互依赖性而采取的有意识的平行行为;但在信息不完全的情况下,寡占企业的价格跟随行为会导致企业间协调彼此的定价,从而可能构成协同行为。证明价格跟随行为构成协同行为的关键,是证明企业间合意的存在。由于证明合意的直接证据很难取得,应通过允许使用间接证据、适用事实推定制度等方式进行灵活认定。

On the Regulation of Price Leadership by Antitrust Law

Price leadership usually occurs in the oligopolistic market. Antitrust law does not forbid the conscious parallelism due to the oligopolistic interdependence among the enterprises. But under the circumstances with incomplete information, price leadership may contribute to the coordination of prices among the enterprises and constitute the concerted practice. The key of proving that price leadership is the concerted practice is the existence of collusion among the enterprises. Since the direct evidence is usually quite hard to obtain, the use of indirect evidence and factual presumption shall be allowed by antitrust law and enforcement practices in order to facilitate the detection and proving of the collusion.