---
title_en: "Anti-Unfair Competition Law of the People's Republic of China"
title_zh: "中华人民共和国反不正当竞争法"
abbreviation: "AUCL"
hierarchy: "law"
issuing_body: "National People's Congress Standing Committee"
adopted_date: 2025-06-27
effective_date: 2025-10-15
status: "effective"
source_url: "https://www.spp.gov.cn/spp/fl/202506/t20250627_699862.shtml"
related_laws: ["dsl", "data-foundation-system-opinions", "data-property-rights-registration-guide-draft"]
domains: ["data-economy"]
url: https://datacompliancechina.com/laws/anti-unfair-competition-law/
---

> **Source: Data Compliance China** — https://datacompliancechina.com/laws/anti-unfair-competition-law/ · English rendering and annotations by DCC; the Chinese original governs. Cite as: Data Compliance China, "Anti-Unfair Competition Law of the People's Republic of China", https://datacompliancechina.com/laws/anti-unfair-competition-law/
> *DCC catalogue entry — summary, not full text.*

## Why this law matters for the data field

The **Anti-Unfair Competition Law (反不正当竞争法, "AUCL")** is China's
general statute against unfair market conduct, enforced administratively
by **SAMR (市场监管总局)** and litigated privately in the courts. For most
of its history it had **nothing specific to say about data** — so Chinese
courts policed data scraping and data free-riding through **Article 2**,
the open-textured good-faith / business-ethics general clause. That is the
basis on which the headline data cases of the past few years were
decided, including
[Datatang v. Yinmu](/posts/datatang-v-yinmu-data-ip-registration-case/)
and the [AI-ghostwritten "seeding post" case](/posts/ai-seeding-post-unfair-competition-case/).

The **third revision, adopted 27 June 2025 and effective 15 October
2025**, changed that by adding a **purpose-built data clause**.

## The data clause — Article 13

Article 13 prohibits an **operator (经营者)** from using **fraud,
coercion, circumventing or breaking technical management measures, or
other improper means** to **acquire or use data lawfully held by another
operator (其他经营者合法持有的数据)** in a way that **harms that
operator's lawful rights and interests and disrupts the order of market
competition**. The revision also:

- reads **"technical management measures"** broadly — covering data,
  algorithms, technology, platform rules, and the like; and
- adds related provisions on **abuse of platform rules** (instructing or
  carrying out fake transactions, fake reviews, malicious returns, etc.).

## How the courts are reading it

The first published application is the **Beijing Internet Court's
30 April 2026 judgment** holding that **scraping and reselling a
career-networking platform's user data is unfair competition** — see
DCC's brief,
[China's First Ruling Under the New AUCL "Data Clause"](/posts/aucl-data-clause-first-case-platform-scraping/).
That judgment supplies the working test counsel should track:

- a **four-element framework** — *object* (data lawfully held by another
  operator), *subject* (the actor is an operator), *conduct* (improper
  acquisition/use), *result* (harm to the other operator + disruption of
  market-competition order); and
- a **definition of "data lawfully held"** — a dataset **lawfully
  collected, stored or used**, **formed through the operator's
  substantial investment**, and **capable of bringing it business benefit
  or competitive advantage**.

Notably, the analysis is **conduct- and investment-focused** rather than
turning on whether a statutory data *property right* exists, and it
**de-emphasises the old "competitive relationship" requirement** — both
moves that widen the clause's reach.

## Briefs on this law

DCC briefs that turn on the AUCL are linked from this page's "Briefs on
this law" section (any post whose `laws:` references this entry).