The suspension of Ant Group’s IPO in 2020 sent shockwaves through China’s financial landscape. Amid speculation that founder Jack Ma’s criticism towards the Chinese government triggered the suspension, this note argues for a nuanced understanding rooted in legal and economic factors unique to the Chinese financial regulatory system. By analyzing Ant’s case, this note contributes to contextualizing China’s evolving banking, securities, and FinTech regulation, while providing lessons for both regulators and fintech companies in fast-growing markets.

Enacted in 1984, Hatch-Waxman was intended to increase generic drug availability and make critical healthcare more affordable for Americans. In the nearly forty years following, while it has increased availability of drugs, it has also allowed drug originators to create avenues to profit in ways not intended when the original compromise was struck, undermining its success. Moreover, given a weak antitrust standard against reverse settlement payments proscribed in Actavis, the U.S. faces a dilemma to further improve access to generic medications in the future. The E.U.’s approach to generic drugs, while presently geographically fragmented, is simpler and has a clear antitrust standard against reverse settlement payments which can provide a touchstone for the U.S. to reform its policy to better achieve the goals originally sought in Hatch-Waxman.

The growing impact of Transnational Corporations (TCs) on international trade, investment, and human rights raises the question of international corporate responsibility. For international responsibility, TCs must be recognized as subjects of international law with legal personality. Apart from states as the primary subjects of international law, such status has been granted to inter-governmental organizations (IGOs). The factors that contributed to the IGOs’ recognition as international law subjects seem to be present for TCs today. While the International Court of Justice granted such legal status to IGOs, for TCs, the best path to recognition would be to establish a global authority with a public-private partnership structure and a self-contained regime to regulate and hold TCs responsible for their internationally wrongful acts.