Alibaba agrees to a 3 billion yuan settlement, but denies any charges
1min read On October 25, Alibaba Group announced that it had agreed to pay $433.5 million (about Rmb3.087 billion) to settle a class action lawsuit brought by investors in the United States.
The lawsuit alleged that Alibaba engaged in monopolistic practices, but the company denied any wrongdoing and emphasized that the settlement was only to avoid the costs and disruptions of further litigation.
The proposed settlement has been filed in Manhattan federal court and requires approval from U.S. District Judge George Daniels.
The settlement covers investors who held Alibaba's American shares between November 13, 2019 and December 23, 2020. The plaintiffs' lawyers described the proposed agreement in court filings as an "extraordinary result," far exceeding the average payout in similar securities class actions that have awarded investors more than $10 billion.
The lawyers emphasized that if the litigation had continued, Alibaba investors could have been awarded up to $11.63 billion (about Rmb82.88 billion).
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On the afternoon of August 30 this year, the National Administration for Market Regulation announced that Alibaba Group had completed its three-year rectification and achieved good results.
The announcement said that in April 2021, the Administration for Market Regulation made a penalty decision and administrative guidance against Alibaba Group Holding Limited (hereinafter referred to as Alibaba Group) for its monopolistic behavior in China's online retail platform service market, ordering it to stop its illegal behavior, conduct a comprehensive self-examination and rectification, and submit self-examination and compliance reports to the Administration for Market Regulation for three consecutive years.
Over the past three years, the Administration for Market Regulation has strengthened its supervision of Alibaba Group's compliance rectification, conducted in-depth verification of the rectification implementation, and commissioned a third-party institution to conduct an enforcement effect assessment.
From the verification and assessment, Alibaba Group has fully stopped its monopolistic behavior as required by the penalty decision and administrative guidance, strictly regulated its own business practices, implemented its platform responsibility, established enterprise compliance management systems, and improved the service levels for platform merchants and consumers, achieving good results in its compliance rectification and improving the online retail market environment.
The Administration for Market Regulation will guide Alibaba Group to continue to standardize its operations, further improve its compliance quality and efficiency, accelerate its innovative and driven development, and continuously improve its service levels to provide solid guarantees for building a world-class enterprise and enhancing its international competitiveness.
