Abstract: With the rapid development of platform economy, issues of unfair competition on platforms have become increasingly prominent in China. Hard law, primarily represented by the anti-unfair competition law, faces challenges in regulating platform unfair competition due to lagging regulatory bases, limited effectiveness, and inflexible regulatory tools, rendering it inadequate to meet regulatory demands. In response, soft law regulation in this domain has emerged as a crucial supplement, leveraging its emphasis on multi-stakeholder governance, consultative approaches, and responsiveness. Concurrently, soft law regulation of platform unfair competition has revealed practical limitations, including value biases, regulatory conflicts, and limited dispute resolution capacity. To address these problems, the following proposals for improvement are put forward. Firstly, the formulation procedures for soft law regulating platform unfair competition needs to be refined, which entails establishing a multi-stakeholder consultation mechanism for balancing interests, developing differentiated procedural norms for distinct entities, and ensuring transparency throughout the soft law formulation process. Second, the systematic development of soft law for platform unfair competition needs to be promoted, including establishing unified classification standards and hierarchy of effectiveness for soft law, constructing multi-stakeholder oversight mechanisms to prevent conflicts between soft law norms, and enhancing coordination between hard law and soft law in this domain. Third, the dispute resolution capacity of soft law for platform unfair competition needs to be optimised, including establishing and improving specialised dispute resolution mechanisms, appointing professional personnels to handle disputes, and advancing judicial integration of soft law.

Key words: platform economy, soft law, unfair competition, hard law, industry self-regulation standards, cyberspace governance