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Alibaba headquarters in Hangzhou (archive image)
Photo: Chance Chan / REUTERS
In China, the online group Alibaba is threatened with a record fine for violating competition law, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The fine could exceed the previous record amount of the equivalent of 815 million euros that the US chip manufacturer Qualcomm had to pay in 2015, the US newspaper reported.
The Chinese competition authorities have been investigating the "suspected monopoly practices" at Alibaba since the end of December.
As the newspaper reports, the authorities are accusing the online group of forbidding traders to use other online companies on its platform.
Alibaba did not want to comment on the report at the request of the AFP news agency.
The competent authority for market regulation only stated that if this is not on the website of the authority, then it is not so.
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Icon: Spiegel PlusChina and the Jack Ma case: Nobody is above the party by Bernhard Zand
Icon: Spiegel Plus Mystery of the Chinese multibillionaire: Where's Jack Ma? By Georg Fahrion and Stefan Schultz, Beijing and Hamburg
Alibaba and its founder Jack Ma have fallen out of favor in China.
At the beginning of November, the planned huge IPO of Ant, Alibaba's financial arm, was suddenly canceled.
Ma publicly criticized his country's financial regulators in late October.
He compared the state banks to the traditional Chinese pawn shops.
In November, the billionaire disappeared from the scene for more than two months;
he reappeared in a video in mid-January praising the communist leadership.
Ma is one of the richest men in the country.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the Chinese leadership wants to prevent Alibaba from destroying a technology company that is so popular with both the Chinese and foreign investors.
Economist: "Have to obey the instructions of the state"
The Chinese competition authorities imposed more symbolic fines on twelve other technology companies on Friday.
The online group Tencent, for example, has to pay the equivalent of 65,000 euros because it bought a platform for educational offers in 2018 without the permission of the authorities.
University of Singapore economist Alex Capri said these penalties sent a clear message: "Business and all of its stakeholders must obey orders from the state."
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bah / AFP