China's top court reiterates importance of fair market competition

China's top court reaffirmed the importance of maintaining fair market competition, urging judges to better handle relevant cases to serve high-quality growth and ensure the healthy development of emerging industries.

With eight landmark cases announced on Monday, the Supreme People's Court emphasized that unfair competition practices such as counterfeiting and disparagement of business reputation not only inhibit innovation and affect honest business operations, but also harm consumers and the public interest.

In one case, for instance, a court in East China's Jiangsu province identified two operators of a moving software as unfair competition after finding they attracted consumers and got profits by stealing product data from other merchants on e-commerce platforms. They were ordered to pay 5 million yuan ($700,785) in damages to the affected businesses.

"The product data is a scarce resource that companies have legally collected and processed at considerable cost, which can bring them operational benefits and competitive advantages," the Jiangsu court said. This means that enterprises have legal rights to their product data.

It added that the actions of the software operators constituted unfair competition because they directly weakened and diverted the market attention that other online platforms and platform merchants rightfully deserved. Additionally, the operators usurped others' potential business opportunities and benefits.

The top court highlighted the ruling, calling on courts nationwide to continue combating such behaviors and to protect the legitimate rights and interests of honest businesses.