Southeast Asia Information Port News (www.dnyxxg.com) – The Guangzhou Municipal Market Supervision Bureau announced on the 29th that it recently issued the "List of Administrative Law Enforcement Reduction and Exemption Items in the Guangzhou Municipal Market Supervision System (2025)" (hereinafter referred to as the "List"). The List expands the original 60 items to 116, covering areas such as market access, food, transaction order, intellectual property, and product quality.
According to reports, the compilation of this List relies on the massive big data of the "Guangzhou Market Supervision Law Enforcement Online System," deeply analyzing nearly 20,000 cases of reduction and exemption of penalties in the city's market supervision field from 2022 to 2024, and sorting the items according to their frequency of application.
Specifically, the new List is divided into four sub-lists:
The list of exemptions from penalties (50 items) includes provisions for exemptions from penalties for violations such as "the first time such a violation is discovered, and the measuring instrument has passed verification."
The list includes 41 items for mitigating penalties, such as specifying quantifiable mitigation scenarios for illegal commercial franchising, including "having one directly operated store with an operating period of more than one year, or having two directly operated stores but neither operating for more than one year," "not conducting franchise recruitment through advertising or public promotion and illegally operating no more than one franchise brand," and "illegal gains not exceeding 30,000 yuan."
The list also includes 20 items for reducing penalties, such as failing to clearly display the legally mandated content of advertisements, failing to prominently display a close button and ensure one-click closure when publishing internet advertisements, and sending advertisements without consent.
The list also includes 5 items for exemption from mandatory measures, such as exempting property related to suspected illegal advertising and premises suspected of operating without a license from sealing or seizure.
It is worth noting that the list explicitly emphasizes that the prerequisite for exemption or reduction of penalties is that "the illegal behavior is minor, promptly corrected, and has not caused harmful consequences." A Guangzhou Municipal Market Supervision Bureau official stated that the illegal nature of the violations related to the reduction or exemption of penalties remains unchanged. The parties involved still have the obligation to cease and correct their illegal behavior; only the penalty outcome is reasonably adjusted.
The list also details the applicable circumstances and discretionary range for quantifying the reduction or exemption of penalties, strengthening law enforcement personnel's understanding and application of the principle of proportionality between offense and penalty during enforcement.
It is understood that, according to the "Guangzhou Municipal High-Level Rule of Law Government Construction Empowering High-Quality Development Special Plan (2024-2035)," Guangzhou aims to have no fewer than 600 items on the list of items eligible for reduction or exemption of penalties by 2029, and no fewer than 1,000 items by 2035. (End)
