Tommy Tainant
Diamond Member
China tech groups given a month to fix antitrust practices
Regulators summon 34 online companies after imposing record fine on Alibaba
www.ft.com
China’s tech companies have been given a month to fix anti-competitive practices and publicly pledge to follow the rules or risk suffering the same fate as ecommerce group Alibaba, which was fined $2.8bn at the weekend.
China’s market and internet regulators and the tax administration issued the ultimatum at a meeting on Tuesday with the country’s 34 leading tech companies, including Tencent, ByteDance, Meituan and Alibaba. In a statement, the regulators said they looked on China’s online “platform economies” positively, but wanted to use the “cautionary case of Alibaba” to warn other companies.
The move represents one of the biggest attempts yet by China’s regulators to break up a range of monopolistic behaviours among Chinese internet groups, many of which have created siloed fiefdoms designed to trap customers and merchants within their internet ecosystems.
Well I know that China is evil and everything but this looks to be a huge blow on behalf of the public. I would be overjoyed to see western regulators take similar actions.