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China: Top pricing regulator fines US firm in antitrust probe

By  |  December 7, 2016

China’s top pricing regulator on Wednesday announced its decision to penalize US Medtronic for price fixing, the first penalty on a medical device maker handed down by the central authority.

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    Medtronic was fined for $17.27 million, 4 percent of the company’s annual sales in 2015, due to violating the anti-monopoly law and eliminating market competition of medical device manufacturing industry, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.

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    The investigation discovered that since at least 2014 the company had fixed the resale price through monopoly agreements with it trading counterparts, namely its distributors.

    Competition among distributors plays a key role in ensuring the formation of a reasonable market price at the time when high-end implantable medical equipment market competition is not sufficient in China, according to the commission.

    Full Content: China Daily

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