China Insight - Competition

On 8 October 2014, the PRC Supreme People’s Court made the long-awaited final ruling on the dispute between Qihoo and Tencent on Tencent’s claimed abuse of dominant position in the instant communications (“IM”) service market. Since the plaintiff and defendant are both IT giants in China and their dispute impacts a large number of internet users, this case attracted considerable attention from the public throughout the legal proceedings.

In 2011, Beijing Qihoo Technology Ltd. (“Qihoo”) sued Tencent Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. and Shenzhen Tencent Computer System Co., Ltd. (collectively “Tencent”) by claiming that the latter abused its dominant position in IM service market by (a) forcing the consumers to make their choice between QQ product and Qihoo product and (b) bundling QQ safety software with QQ IM software without valid reasons.

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