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Jack Ma says he felt "puzzled" by recent controversies surrounding his company. Photo: Bloomberg

Dust-ups with regulator leave Jack Ma feeling 'wronged'

Alibaba chief says escalating disputes involving his company are puzzling but he's prepared for any lawsuits and welcomes more competition

Alibaba

Jack Ma Yun, chairman of e-commerce giant Alibaba, has said he "felt wronged" amid the controversies that have embroiled his company recently.

Ma made the comments in a speech about the internet finance industry he gave before officials from the China Securities Regulatory Commission on Tuesday, news website ThePaper.cn said.

"Over the past two years, not only was I a very controversial figure, but also these days, the disputes are bigger and bigger," the website quoted him as saying. "I, too, felt puzzled, sometimes wronged - how did things become this way?"

A war of words erupted between Alibaba and the State Administration for Industry and Commerce in late January after the agency accused the group of allowing counterfeit and substandard goods to be sold through its Taobao retail website.

The claims were based on discussions between Alibaba and the regulator in July, but only made public in a white paper released last month. The regulator admitted the document had been withheld to "avoid hindering" the group's initial public offering in the United States. But the delay raises the possibility the e-commerce giant could be sued by shareholders if it withheld a material risk in its prospectus.

The company hit back by saying the accusations sprang from an unfair quality survey. It has also repeatedly threatened to file a formal complaint against the regulator. The regulator has since said the document was not a white paper and had no legal force.

Ma made no explicit mention of the document in his speech on Tuesday, but said Alibaba had been extremely thorough with due diligence ahead of the offering.

The company had an opportunity to list a month earlier, he said, but it wanted the US Securities and Exchange Commission to be meticulous.

He said the company was prepared for any legal challenges. "If people could get to know us better through a lawsuit, I would see it as [a chance for] good communication … I don't think [it's] necessarily a bad thing," Ma was quoted as saying.

"We were prepared to bear these responsibilities once we decided to get the company listed."

He also broke his silence on the ongoing battle between Alibaba and Tencent, another leading mainland internet services provider, over mobile payments. Around this time last year, more than 8 million people used Alipay to send traditional "red packets" to loved ones.

But Tencent last week dropped Alibaba's service from its popular mobile app WeChat and is offering a similar service. The two giants are also fighting to stake out online territory for social networking, taxi services and banking.

Ma said the competition was healthy. "This is very normal, for China's three largest internet companies, if we didn't compete, strive, we would be in trouble."

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Dust-ups leave Ma feeling 'wronged'
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