Update (September 13, 2017): China Law Translate has translated the draft revisions to the Law Against Unfair Competition (linked below).

After releasing the draft revisions to the People’s Court Organic Law and the People’s Procuratorates Organic Law for public comments on Monday, the NPCSC is now soliciting public opinions on three additional laws.

The comments period for the following two laws will end on September 24—i.e., it lasts only 20 days, which signals the NPCSC will almost certainly consider and pass the two bills at its next session in late October.

The comments period for the third draft law, Tobacco Leaf Tax Law (烟叶税法草案), will run till October 6. The tax rate is 20%.

Only PDF Chinese versions are available at this time. Officials explanations are included in the PDFs.

Very Briefly…

The new draft revision of the Law Against Unfair Competition (our post on the first draft is available here):

Clarifies the entities that business operators are prohibited from bribing to gain competitive advantage (Art. 7);

Includes a new catch-all provision banning acts of unfair competition on the Internet that are otherwise not enumerated in the Law (Art. 12);

Deletes article that authorizes the State Council to designate as unfair competition additional acts that are not explicitly banned by the Law;

Limits the government’s power in investigating suspected acts of unfair competition (Art. 13);

Provides rules for calculating the amount of damages in unfair competition tort suits (Art. 17).

The new draft revision of the Standardization Law (our post on the first draft is available here):

Expands the subjects of standards to be prioritized to include those ensuring life and property security, national security, and environmental and ecological security (Art. 13);

Prescribes additional procedural requirements for the formulation of standards (Art. 14);

Enriches provisions relating to group standards (Art. 17);

Loosens requirements on disclosing the standards implemented by enterprises (Art. 27);

Provides for recording enterprises’ failure to comply with compulsory standards in their credit files (Art. 36).

To submit comments online, please refer to these instructions. Comments can also be mailed to the NPCSC Legislative Affairs Commission (全国人大常委会法制工作委员会) at the following address:

Chinese: 北京市西城区前门西大街1号 邮编：100805

English: No. 1 West Qianmen Avenue, Xicheng District, Beijing 100805

Please clearly write “[BILL NAME IN CHINESE]征求意见” on the envelope.

If you like this Blog, please consider following us on Twitter (@NPC_Observer) or via email (use the “Follow Blog via Email” widget in the sidebar).