Companies fined for violating anti-monopoly rules

The State Administration for Market Regulation has released a list of deals that violated anti-monopoly rules on the disclosure of transactions.

The list of 28 deals include five for Alibaba, 12 for Tencent, and also inclues Beijing-headquartered Weibo.

The administrative orders were dated between March and May this year. Most of the violators were ordered to pay the maximum penalty of 500,000 yuan (US$74,688) under anti-monopoly law.

One of the wholly-owned subsidaries of Didi Global was also found to have violated acquisition disclosure requirements while purchasing a minority stake of a local vehicle leasing firm.

Alibaba was also found to have breached rules for its purchase of equity in its video-streaming subsidiary Youku Tudou in 2021, as well as its acquisition of a minority stake in Shanghai-based financial news service provider China Business Network in 2015.

Shanghai-headquartered Bilibili was also among one of the violators. It was penalized for failing to properly disclose its acquisition of a domestic animation production firm in 2018.

Shanghai Shentong Metro Group Co was fined 300,000 yuan and Bombardier Transportation Sweden AB was fined 400,000 yuan for failing to file for a business concentration to market regulators when setting up a 50-50 joint venture in 2012.

A string of penalties has been handed out by market regulators since late 2020 as it looks to rein in the booming digital economy, sending a strong signal to tech giants that the Internet industry is not outside the oversight of anti-monopoly laws.

The State Council has also unveiled a set of anti-trust guidelines that target Internet platforms to ensure fair market competition and promote the innovative and healthy development of the sector. This aims to stop monopolistic behaviors in the platform economy and protect fair competition in the market.