London/Hong Kong (CNN Business)China has ordered Alibaba to pay a record fine of 18.2 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) after antitrust regulators concluded that the online shopping giant had been behaving like a monopoly.
Chinese state media reported Saturday that the State Administration for Market Regulation had imposed the penalty following an antitrust investigation into Alibaba's (BABA) "exclusive dealing agreements" that prevented merchants from selling products on rival e-commerce platforms — a practice known as "choosing one from two."
The fine is equivalent to 4% of Alibaba's sales in China in 2019, state news agency Xinhua reported, and dwarfs the previous record penalty of $975 million handed out to American chipmaker Qualcomm (QCOM) in 2015.
Beijing has been tightening the screws on China's national tech champions in recent months, part of a regulatory crackdown that President Xi Jinping has described as one of the country's top priorities for 2021. Last month, Xi urged officials to step up their efforts to regulate online companies to maintain social stability. READ MORE
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