BEIJING – Chinese regulators on Thursday announced an anti-monopoly investigation by e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, stepping up official efforts to increase control over China’s fast-growing technology industries.
The market regulator said it was reviewing Alibaba’s policy of “choosing one of the two”, which requires business partners to avoid doing business with competitors. The one-sentence statement did not give details of possible penalties or a timetable for announcing a result.
Chinese leaders said earlier that an economic priority next year will be to step up anti-monopoly enforcement. They seem to be especially concerned with increasing control over Alibaba and other dominant internet companies that are expanding into finance, healthcare and other businesses.
Alibaba founder Jack Ma is China’s richest businessman and one of the country’s best-known figures.
Regulators previously forced the suspension of the stock market debut of Ant Group, an online finance platform derived from Alibaba.
A separate announcement on Thursday said Ant officials were called to meet with regulators.
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the world’s largest e-commerce company in terms of total sales volume, and another company was fined in mid-December for failing to apply for official approval before proceeding with some acquisitions.
In November, the government released regulatory proposals aimed at preventing anti-competitive behavior by internet companies, such as signing exclusive contracts and using subsidies to eliminate competitors.