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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.

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.

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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