Former Tencent staff held over China corruption inquiry
Mainland authorities have detained about half a dozen former employees of Tencent Holdings for alleged corruption and bribery, as well as an Alibaba Group executive.
Mainland authorities have detained about half a dozen former employees of Tencent Holdings for alleged corruption and bribery, as well as an Alibaba Group executive, the two internet companies said.
Tencent said yesterday that "five or six" people had been detained.
Earlier it had said: "An internal investigation brought to light bribery and corruption [claims] involving some online video employees ... Police have been notified and we await the results."
The alleged wrongdoing occurred when present Alibaba executive Patrick Liu was head of the social networking and entertainment company's online video unit, Tencent said.
An Alibaba spokeswoman said on Thursday that Liu had been taken into custody by the Public Security Bureau. Liu could not be reached for comment.
E-commerce giant Alibaba and Tencent, China's biggest social networking and entertainment firm, are the country's two biggest internet businesses.
The two titans have clashed with increasing frequency as they move from their core business area into areas such as online entertainment. They have both spent hundreds of millions of dollars on video streaming platforms and music.
"We understand Patrick Liu, of our digital entertainment unit, was detained by the authorities," Alibaba's spokesman Bob Christie said. "This issue is related to his time at Tencent and has nothing to do with Alibaba."
Liu and other former members of Tencent's video business left the company in 2013 and joined Alibaba later that year.
Tencent and Liu went to court last year over a contract dispute concerning a confidentiality and non-compete agreement, which Liu unsuccessfully tried to appeal against, according to official court records.
Alibaba said on its official Weibo microblog that it was "extremely shocked" by the detention of Liu, who is also an executive director at Alibaba Pictures.
It also said that young people made mistakes and that it would offer him legal support.
Tencent said in its Weibo post yesterday: "Patrick Liu was a former member of Tencent's management, and is suspected of corruption while in his position - this far exceeds the boundaries of making mistakes and [allegedly] violated the company's rules as well as violating the law."
