Abstract: Five Shanghai gold retailers fined for price manipulation because although they were supposed to be competing with each other, the retailers conspired to fix the price, which constitutes as a horizontal monopoly, a clear violation of the Anti-Monopoly Law. The reason behind the five gold retailers’ fines is that their practices of horizontal monopoly caused more severe harm to consumer’s legal interest and social orders than that of previous vertical monopoly on limitation of resale prices made by Mao Tai, Wu Liang Ye, and six milk powder manufacturers. However, what is puzzling about this fine is that the punishments for this horizontal monopoly violation made by the NDRC were inferior to that of vertical monopoly violation.