China Detected 175 Antitrust Law Violations Last Year... Over 4 Trillion Won in Fines

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Daehyun] Last year, Chinese authorities detected 175 cases of antitrust law violations and imposed fines totaling around 4 trillion won.

Since October 2020, when Alibaba founder Jack Ma criticized government regulations, China has been rigorously regulating big tech companies by imposing hefty fines for antitrust law violations and other reasons.

According to the "Antitrust Law Enforcement Report" released on the 8th by the State Administration for Market Regulation of China, the administration detected 175 cases of antitrust law violations last year and imposed fines amounting to 23.592 billion yuan (approximately 4.4 trillion won). The number of detected cases increased by 62% compared to the previous year.

Focusing enforcement on the platform economy, the administration imposed fines of 18.2 billion yuan (about 3.4 trillion won) on Alibaba, China's largest e-commerce company, and 3.4 billion yuan (about 640 billion won) on Meituan, a comprehensive service platform, and issued corrective orders, the administration stated.

The administration analyzed that unfair practices where giant platform companies abused their dominant positions by forcing affiliated small and medium-sized enterprises to sell exclusively on their platforms have improved, leading to better market competition order and securing development space for SMEs.

Additionally, it highlighted the case where the merger of two subsidiaries of Tencent, China's largest internet company, the internet game live streaming platforms Huya and Douyu, was prohibited, evaluating that it played an important role in preventing platform monopolies.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.