The Chinese market regulator on Sunday announced a new antitrust law targeting Internet services companies, formally tightening existing regulations related to tech firms. .
According to CNBC, the new regulations concretize the draft antitrust law that was mentioned in November 2020 and clarify monopolistic acts that authorities plan to prevent.
The new legislation is expected to put more pressure on Internet service providers, including many that provide e-commerce services such as Alibaba’s Taobao or Tmall or JD.com. In addition, there are many other affected financial services such as Alipay of Ant or WeChatPay of Tencent Holdings.
The latest Chinese State Regulatory Authority (SAMR) regulations prohibit companies from engaging in a wide variety of activities, including not forcing suppliers to choose among top Internet companies, which is why capital commonly found in the market.
The latest regulatory guidelines will prevent monopolistic behavior in the underlying economy and protect competition in the marketplace.
Regulatory agencies also provide businesses with no fixed prices, restricting technology and using data and algorithms to manipulate the market.
It is not a new thing for Chinese officials to tighten their controls on technology companies. There can be a series of tough moves recently with the chain of businesses that Mr. Jack Ma founded.
Recently, however, Chinese officials have had more loosened policies on Jack Ma’s business. Ant Financial Group and Chinese regulators were able to agree on the plan to restructure the financial “empire” of billionaire Jack Ma. Specifically, this financial group will change to operate under the model of a financial joint stock company and thus will be bound by the same capital control conditions as banks.
According to Bloomberg, the new plan requires moving all of Ant’s business to a joint stock company model, which includes many areas of technology such as blockchain and freight. According to Ant’s initial proposal, they were just shifting their finance to a new business.
An official announcement on Ant’s reform plans will be able to be announced before the Chinese New Year next week. The latest information immediately satisfied investors who are holding shares of Alibaba. Alibaba currently holds a 30% stake in Ant. Alibaba shares rebounded in the latest trading session in Hong Kong.
Previously, some market members had speculated about the possibility that Ant would be forced to terminate some of its businesses, which now has not happened, according to the division’s analysis. Financial research at Jefferies Financial Group, Mr. Shujin Chen.
The Ant reform plan marks the first step in a long reform process because managers have spent a lot of effort in calculating the financial conditions of the business as well as guiding operations with businesses with many areas. works in the financial industry.