SAMR Issues Discretion Rules for Administrative Market Penalties

China News Service reported that the State Administration for Market Regulation issued administrative penalty discretion rules to ensure administrative penalties correspond properly to offenses. Officials stated the core goals are providing operational procedures, elevating standards to departmental regulations, subdividing discretionary tiers, and establishing a unified national benchmark for market supervision law enforcement. The newly issued regulatory document divides administrative penalty discretion into five specific tiers, comprising exemption from punishment, mitigated punishment, lighter punishment, ordinary punishment, and heavier punishment, and it establishes concrete applicable scenarios for each discretionary level. Law enforcement officials distinguished lighter punishment from mitigated punishment to resolve difficulties where frontline personnel felt unable or hesitant to apply these standards during actual penalty cases. According to the regulations, administrative penalty benchmark rules must be disclosed publicly and updated dynamically, and administrative punishment decision documents must explicitly state how relevant discretionary benchmarks are applied. When cases involve conflicting mitigating and aggravating factors, enforcement teams must evaluate their degree of influence, add similar factors, offset opposite ones, or account for primary factors before adjusting discretionary outcomes.