Today China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) issued a terse statement saying it is investigating e-commerce platform Alibaba for suspected monopolistic practices involving restricting partners to work with it exclusively. Simultaneously, an announcement was made by state-run news agency Xhinhua that Ant Group has been summoned for meetings with a bevy of regulators.
Ant was originally an offshoot of Alibaba and owns China’s biggest mobile payment app Alipay. Its massive IPO was recently shelved because of regulator concerns. The regulators that it has to meet with include the central bank, China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC), China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), and State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE).
In a statement, Ant said “We will carefully study and strictly abide by the requirements of the supervisory department, and complete the implementation of relevant work without compromise.”
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