Angela Lang / CNET
Chinese e-commerce titan Alibaba was hit with a record $ 2.75 billion antitrust fine on Saturday, Reuters reported, with the state administration for market regulation, saying the company had abused its market power by withholding sellers from other e to use trading platforms. .
The fine comes months after Alibaba’s founder and Former CEO Jack Ma, one of China’s richest people, criticized China’s regulatory system, Reuters noted. Following Ma’s comments, Chinese officials also placed the kibosh on a planned $ 37 billion exchange by Ant Group, Alibaba’s Internet financing arm, Reuters said.
In addition to the antitrust fine, the SAMR said Alibaba should, according to the news agency, make ‘thorough corrections’ to improve compliance and protect the rights of consumers. And Ant needs to get a government-driven makeup right that could sharpen the leash of some of its businesses and reduce its valuations, Reuters said.
Alibaba called the fine “an important action to protect fair competition in the market” and said in a statement that it had cooperated with the SAMR’s antitrust investigation and conducted a self-assessment of and improvements to our internal systems, while the steady operation is assured of our business. ‘
Reuters noted that the $ 2.75 billion fine is about 4% of Alibaba’s domestic revenue during 2019.