A Chinese vitamin manufacturer has agreed to settle in the vitamin C class action lawsuit in New York – the first time a Chinese company has opted for settlement in a US investigation.

Google has cleared the final hurdle leading to its acquisition of Motorola Mobility, after China’s Ministry of Commerce (Mofcom) passed the deal with conditions.

China’s Supreme People’s Court has released a judicial interpretation of China’s Antimonopoly Law (AML) which promises to shape the development of private antitrust litigation in China.

The US agencies “would love to explore the bounds of retail price maintenance” (RPM) and companies should expect aggressive treatment as the authorities look for a suitable case, David Wales at Jones Day in Washington, DC, said on a GCR panel yesterday.

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has promoted competition specialist Margaret Wang to counsel in the firm’s Hong Kong office.

US mining group Molycorp last week announced plans to acquire Canadian rare earth processor Neo Material Technologies for C$1.3 billion (€996 million). The merger will combine the owner of the largest rare-earth deposit outside of China with a leading rare earth processing technology company.

China and the US have imposed more structural commitments on the US$4.5 billion merger between Western Digital and Hitachi, with China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) taking the tougher stance and ordering to keep the two businesses separate for at least two years.

Susan Ning, who will chair GCR Live: Law Leaders Asia-Pacific 2012 next month, talks to GCR about her experience of practising competition law in China, and the emergence of one of the fastest-developing and most scrutinised antitrust systems in the world.

China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) has published new guidelines on investigating and punishing companies that fail to notify their mergers.

The debate over whether China’s first antitrust probe on large state-owned companies will end up with a settlement or a fine has taken a new turn, following comments made by a government adviser.

China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) is standing alone in imposing remedies over Seagate’s acquisition of Samsung’s hard disk business, after the US and EU unconditionally cleared the transaction.

China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) has approved Nestlé’s US$1.7 billion bid for Chinese sweet and snack-maker Hsu Fu Chi International, in one of the largest foreign takeovers of a Chinese company to date.

Officials from the US Department of Justice’s antitrust division and the US Federal Trade Commission have met with representatives from China's Ministry of Commerce in Washington, DC, to discuss antitrust merger enforcement.

China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has imposed fines of almost 7 million renminbi (around €813,000) on two pharmaceutical companies for abuse of dominance in the market for blood pressure drugs. The fines are the first significant penalties the authority has issued for breach of competition law.