Chinese authorities have fined e-commerce giant Alibaba with a maxi-fine of 18.2 billion yuan (2.78 billion dollars) for abuse of dominant position. The giant founded by Jack Ma has announced that it has accepted the sanction and has pledged to outline plans on Monday to make its operations compliant.
The sanction, which is equivalent to approximately 4% of the company’s revenues in 2019, is the highest ever imposed by the antitrust authority in China and comes as part of a tight control launched in recent months on the hi-tech giants. The State Administration for Market Regulation (Samr), China’s antitrust authority, explained in a statement that an investigation launched in December found that Alibaba has “abused its market dominance” since 2015.
Alibaba, along with Tencent, is one of the Chinese e-commerce giants in the sights of the Beijing authorities, a squeeze that was also linked to the criticisms launched last October by its founder, the tycoon Jack Ma, against the control system financial sector of the country. In December, Samr announced the opening of an antitrust investigation into the company and in the same month suspended the $ 37 billion maxi-IPO of Ant Group, Alibaba’s fintech subsidiary.