On the afternoon of July 28, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) held a special press conference on the rectification of illegal and irregular acts in market-oriented activities, reporting on the achievements of a three-month special rectification campaign targeting illegal activities in festivals, exhibitions, and forums nationwide.
Special Rectification Achieves Positive Results
Yao Lei, Director of the Price Supervision and Competition Bureau of SAMR, announced that since March 2026, SAMR has coordinated with publicity, commerce, culture and tourism departments to deploy a three-month nationwide rectification campaign targeting illegal activities in festivals, exhibitions, and forums. The campaign lawfully addresses false advertising, forced participation or disguised fees, failure to clearly mark prices, sales of substandard goods, and false advertisements.
During the rectification period, market regulation departments nationwide conducted 7,987 inspections and investigations, verifying 3,631 leads. To date, a total of 197 illegal cases related to festivals, exhibitions, and forums have been investigated, with fines and confiscations totaling 2.771 million yuan, and 476 entities ordered to rectify. Four cases involving private ranking enterprises producing crude rankings were investigated, resulting in fines of 3.4 million yuan. Four cases related to the Busiest Five-Person Group were investigated, with fines of 170,000 yuan.
Focusing on Two Types of Outstanding Problems
Yao Lei pointed out that the governance focuses on two types of outstanding problems. First, illegal and irregular acts in festivals, exhibitions, and forums, including misusing official names, improperly using high-profile titles, exaggerating event scale and influence for false promotion, and industry associations or chambers of commerce using administrative power to force or disguisedly force enterprises to participate in activities and charge fees. Second, illegal acts in ranking and evaluation activities, including misusing official names, fabricating qualifications and cooperative backgrounds, forging false official backgrounds, authoritatively publishing Top 100 or Top 1,000 rankings, fabricating evaluation indicator systems, and producing crude pay-to-list rankings.
Typical Cases Form Strong Deterrence
The Guangdong Provincial Market Regulation Bureau investigated the case of Gelebo Yili (Guangzhou) Brand Consulting Co., Ltd. for false advertising. The company was established in 2017 with subscribed capital of 1.88 million yuan but zero actual capital. Apart from the person in charge, it had no formal employees, yet it presented itself as a research institute and continuously published various brand rankings such as Global Top 20 for many years, charging fees from listed companies. The Guangdong market regulation department imposed a severe administrative penalty of revoking its business license and fining it 1.3 million yuan.
The Guangxi Market Regulation Department investigated the first typical case of false advertising in foreign-related exhibition participation nationwide. Darong (Beijing) Exhibition Co., Ltd. unauthorizedly integrated multiple specialized exhibition names, named and held a comprehensive industrial expo, and privately listed multiple foreign consulates and overseas business associations as invited participants and exhibitors without obtaining confirmation from relevant foreign institutions. The Guangxi market regulation department imposed an administrative penalty of 800,000 yuan on the enterprise in accordance with the Anti-Unfair Competition Law.
Improving Long-term Governance Mechanisms
Xin Qun, Deputy Director of the Price Supervision and Competition Bureau of SAMR, introduced that SAMR coordinates supervision and law enforcement with long-term governance mechanism construction, promoting both immediate rectification and long-term establishment. First, developing compliance guidelines for market regulation of ranking publications, clarifying that ranking publishers must not mislead the public by misusing names such as authoritative institutions or official certifications, and must not engage in false or misleading commercial promotion. Second, developing compliance guidelines for market regulation of festivals, exhibitions, and forum activities, clarifying that event organizers should lawfully fulfill approval and filing procedures, and comply with prohibitions regarding commercial marketing promotion, product quality and pricing, and forced fees.
Next, market regulation departments will continue to consolidate the achievements of the special rectification, focusing on key areas such as festivals, exhibitions, forums, and ranking evaluations, increase law enforcement efforts, continuously expose typical cases, and resolutely prevent the recurrence of chaos.