Company: TCOM
Filing Date: 2025-04-11
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0001193125-25-078429
Chunk: 59

Company: Trip.com Group Ltd
Filing Date: 2025-04-11
Form: 20-F
Item: Item 3
Chunk 59
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 concerning mergers and acquisitions established additional procedures and requirements that could make merger and acquisition activities by foreign investors more time-consuming and complex, including requirements in some instances that the anti-monopoly law enforcement authority be notified in advance of any change-of-control transaction in which a foreign investor takes control of a PRC domestic enterprise. 
 Moreover, the PRC Anti-Monopoly Law and Provisions of the State Council on Thresholds for Reporting of Concentrations of Operators require that transactions which are deemed concentrations and involve parties with specified turnover thresholds (for example, during the previous fiscal year, (i) the total global turnover of all operators participating in the transaction exceeds RMB12.0 billion and at least two of these operators each had a turnover of more than RMB800 million within China, or (ii) the total turnover within China of all the operators participating in the concentration exceeded RMB4.0 billion and at least two of these operators each had a turnover of more than RMB800 million within China) must be cleared by the anti-monopoly law enforcement authority before they can be completed. On February 7, 2021, the Anti-Monopoly Commission of the State Council further issued the Anti-Monopoly Guidelines for the Internet Platform Economy Sector, which aim at specifying some of the circumstances under which activities of internet platforms may be identified as monopolistic acts as well as setting out merger controlling filing procedures involving variable interest entities. On June 24, 2022, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress adopted an amendment to the PRC Anti-Monopoly Law, which introduced a “safe harbor” for vertical monopoly agreements entered into by operators whose market share falls below a specific threshold to be set by the SAMR, granted the SAMR the power to suspend the review period in merger investigations under specified circumstances, allowed public prosecutors to bring a civil public interest lawsuit based on monopolistic behaviors, and significantly increased the penalties for violation of PRC Anti-Monopoly Law, among others. This amendment emphasized the enforcement of PRC Anti-Monopoly Law in the internet and other key industries. The strengthened enforcement of the PRC Anti-Monopoly Law could result in investigations on our acquisitions or investments conducted in the past and make our acquisitions or investments in the future more difficult due to the prior filing requirement. Due to the uncertainties associated with the evolving legislative activities and varied local implementation practices of anti-monopoly and competition laws and regulations in China, it may be costly to adjust some of our business practice in order to comply with these