On August 28, 2024, the Alibaba office building in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China.
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China’s market regulator said on Friday that Alibaba has completed a three-year regulatory “rectification” process after receiving antitrust fines in 2021 for alleged monopolistic behavior.
At 7:24 a.m., Alibaba shares rose 4.37% in U.S. pre-market trading
On Friday, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) said it had been overseeing Alibaba’s compliance with antitrust regulations over the past few years. According to a statement from Google Translate, the State Administration for Market Regulation said the rectification work had achieved “good results.”
In 2021, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation fined Alibaba 18.23 billion yuan ($2.6 billion) as part of its antitrust investigation into technology giant Alibaba. Regulators are focused on forcing merchants to choose one of the two e-commerce platforms, rather than being able to use both platforms simultaneously.
At the time, regulators said the “choose-or” policy and other policies allowed Alibaba to consolidate its position in the market and gain an unfair competitive advantage.
Since the fine, the State Administration for Market Regulation has been monitoring Alibaba to ensure it complies with the regulator’s requirements. The State Administration for Market Regulation said on Friday that Alibaba has now completed the process and stopped its “choose-or” monopoly practices.
The State Administration for Market Regulation said it will now guide Alibaba to continue to improve compliance and efficiency and accelerate innovation.
Completion of regulatory reforms would help end one of Alibaba’s most serious conflicts with Beijing. Jefferies analysts said in a note on Friday that the end of the regulatory process was “positive” for the company, which “underscores that this is a new beginning and ensures operational compliance.” .
But the regulator’s announcement could also signal that China’s regulators are continuing to soften their stance on private technology companies, following a crackdown that began in late 2020. Companies in gaming and other fields.
Alibaba founder Jack Ma’s empire has been in the spotlight over the past few years since regulators canceled the IPO of his fintech company Ant Group in 2020. .
Regulatory concerns have been a hangover for Alibaba shares, which are down more than 70% from their 2020 peak.
The tech giant showed early signs of recovery in the June quarter as cloud computing revenue reaccelerated and trading at its e-commerce platform looked healthy.
– CNBC’s Christine Wang contributed to this report.
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