Nuctech raids leave Chinese businesses reeling as new EU foreign subsidies regulation shows its teeth
- Dramatic search for evidence of financial help from Beijing stuns businesses and competition lawyers in Europe
- Seizures of IT equipment and phones made under a regulatory tool that Chinese companies need to learn about quickly, experts warn
In the sort of raids usually reserved for busting cartels, officers seized IT equipment and mobile phones.
The “competition officers” – from Brussels, Poland and the Netherlands – were looking for evidence of financial help that Nuctech may have received from the Chinese government.
In Brussels policy circles, Tuesday’s raids were about as dramatic as it gets, and the revelations – first reported by the South China Morning Post – sent shock waves through the EU.
They suggest that the European Commission has moved to a new stage in cracking down on what it views as one of the biggest risk to the Eurozone economy: foreign subsidies from Beijing, which it believes are causing industrial overcapacity that could see Europe flooded with cheap Chinese imports.