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Alibaba’s home province first to issue competition compliance guidelines for online platform operators
- The Zhejiang provincial government’s guidelines combine multiple antitrust rules and regulations
- This initiative has come months after the State Council Antitrust Committee issued the final version of the country’s new anti-monopoly guidelines
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Eastern China’s Zhejiang province, where e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding is based, has issued the country’s first provincial competition compliance guidelines for online platform operators amid Beijing’s increased scrutiny of Big Tech companies.
The guidelines, which came into effect upon their release last Tuesday, combine multiple antitrust laws and regulations as a means to “promote the healthy and sustainable development of the platform economy”, according to a statement from the Zhejiang government.
Alibaba, headquartered in the provincial capital of Hangzhou, was the first Big Tech company to be investigated for antitrust activities by Beijing. The company, which owns the South China Morning Post, was slapped with a record US$2.8 billion fine in April.
Zhejiang’s initiative has come months after the State Council Antitrust Committee issued the final version of the country’s new anti-monopoly guidelines, which took effect in February, providing regulators with an important tool to crack down on monopolistic practices, such as forcing merchants to choose only one online channel or charging different prices for clients.
The Zhejiang guidelines are not new rules, but provide online platform operators with instructions on how to improve their antitrust compliance, according to Ding Mengdan, a lawyer at Beijing Yingke (Hangzhou) Law Firm.
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China kicks off antitrust probes into Alibaba over alleged monopolistic practices
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It is an initiative that follows up on a commitment made by the Communist Party leadership of Zhejiang province in December, days after Beijing commenced its antitrust investigation of Alibaba.
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