Date of Completion

Spring 4-8-2026

Thesis Advisor(s)

Y. Zou; A. Lerman

Honors Major

Accounting

Disciplines

Antitrust and Trade Regulation | Corporate Finance | International Business | International Trade Law | Science and Technology Law | Technology and Innovation

Abstract

China's State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) holds discretionary authority over the merger review process. This paper examines whether SAMR's review of technology and semiconductor transactions since the governing body's inception in 2018 reflects political-economic incentives beyond what competitive harm analysis alone would explain. The paper is broken into three core pillars: accessing SAMR's regulatory code to identify how flexibility to exercise discretion is codified, scrutinizing SAMR's full adverse outcome record for overrepresentation of technology and semiconductor deals, and deconstructing a semiconductor megamerger to illustrate those mechanisms with the backdrop of real time geopolitical events. I find that technology and semiconductor transactions are overrepresented in SAMR's conditional approval record at 2.5 times their expected rate, significant at the 1% level. A case study of Synopsys/Ansys, a $35 billion semiconductor merger conditionally approved in July 2025, illustrates the mechanisms through which this pattern is produced, including the call-in power, stop-the-clock provision, and dual remedy structure. The findings suggest that in Chinese merger review, competition analysis and political economy are difficult to disentangle.

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