China fines Alibaba record USD 2.8 billion
- 14 April 2021
- 887
Last December, the Chinese government launched an antitrust investigation into Alibaba to examine whether the company abused its market dominance to gain competitive advantages. This month, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) made an announcement accusing the ecommerce giant of violating anti-monopoly law, as the result of which, Alibaba now faces a record fine equivalent to USD 2.8 billion (CNY 18.2 billion). In addition, regulators demanded the company to file a self-examination compliance report within the next three years.
As noted by CNBC, Alibaba abused «choose one» policy by utilizing mechanisms to prevent merchants from selling their products on other platforms. Hence, these practices resulted in unfair competitive advantage, higher entry barriers and lower innovation.
In response, Alibaba accepted the fine and pledged to make improvements to its internal systems.
Nevertheless, according to Bloomberg, Jack Ma’s fortune already increased by USD 2.3 billion, as following the announcement shares of Alibaba Group rose by 9.3% — the biggest jump in the past four years.
