Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu and others were all fined over the weekend for violating antitrust laws, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) said in a statement.
SAMR listed 43 separate violations, with some violations dating back to 2012. The fine for each was 500,000 yuan ($78,000).
“The cases reported this time are all transactions that should have been declared but were not reported before,” SAMR said in its statement.
The market regulator has been in the lead for a whole year campaign against Big Tech in China. The total announced Saturday is small compared with several violation penalties imposed earlier this year, including a record 18.2 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) fine. Alibaba (TORTOISE) was ordered to pay. At the time, antitrust regulators said they had concluded that the online shopping giant was behaving like a monopoly.
Shares of Alibaba, Tencent (TCEHY) and Baidu (BIDU) were all slightly lower in Hong Kong on the Monday following the announcement. Baidu fell the most, 2.1%, while Tencent fell 0.3%.
Alibaba fell 1.6%. Company on Friday down nearly 11% in its steepest drop since listing in Hong Kong in November 2019. The tech giant warned last week of weaker growth this year due to China. economy slows down and Beijing continues regulation suppression. (Alibaba also does business in New York.)
– Beijing’s CNN bureau contributed to this report.
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