竞争行为正当性评价中的商业惯例因素

近年来的司法实践表现出越来越强调商业惯例的趋势。部分案件中出现了将广泛实践直接等同为商业惯例,并据此肯定竞争行为正当性的现象。这种现象值得警惕。诚然,商业惯例是在特定背景下形成的自发秩序和相对便利的信息中介,因此能为法院进行正当性评价提供线索。但法院应当认识到商业惯例提供的线索存在巨大的局限性,只能被视为辅助工具,而非决定性标准。法院有必要对系争行为的市场效果展开经济分析,据以完成正当性评价。

Commercial Practice Factorin Evaluation of Legitimacy of Competitive Behavior

Judicial practice in recent years has shown increasingly emphasis on commercial customs in evaluating unfair competition behaviors.Some courts acknowledge the fairness of certain competition behaviors by pointing out such behaviors are in accordance with commercial customs.Such reasoning is hardly acceptable.Competition behaviors that are in accordance with commercial customs are not necessarily fair,while competition behaviors that do not respect commercial customs are not always unfair.Commercial customs do bear certain correlation to the justification of the respective competition behaviors because customs often reveal spontaneous order which represents the most efficient market structure.However,the faster the relevant social context is changing,the less the courts should rely on commercial customs because the self-organizing process in a fast-changing context is not yet finished and the commercial customs(if there exist any)are therefore not yet reliable proxy.In sum,commercial customs are at most useful clues which sometimes simplify the reasoning,but they should never be deemed as ultimate tools in deciding the fairness of competition behaviors.