Jack Ma’s Ant Group: Big blow to Jack Ma’s company, China fined one billion dollars.
China has given a big blow to businessman Jack Ma’s company Ant Group. He has imposed a fine of about one billion dollars on the company. The reason behind the imposition of fine has been cited as violation of consumer protection law and corporate rules. These cases pertained to irregularities in corporate governance, consumer protection and money laundering. Ant Group also operates payments firm Ali Pay.
According to media reports, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the People’s Bank of China and the National Financial Regulatory Administration said in a joint statement, Ant Group broke rules related to business activities in banking and insurance, payments, money laundering and fund sales. At the same time, Ant Group has said to follow the conditions of the fine. The Group says it will further enhance its compliance administration.
Ant Group is an affiliate of e-commerce giant Alibaba, also founded by Ma. Shares of Alibaba registered a sharp rise on Friday. According to media reports, the company came under scrutiny three years ago when the record-breaking offer was made. At the end of the year 2020, the company postponed the decision to bring an IPO of $ 37 billion. It was being said that it was on its way to become the biggest stock sale in history.
When this came to light, a massive campaign was launched by the Chinese government to curb private enterprise in the country. Since then, the government clamped down on China’s domestic technology sector for two years and Ant was forced to make changes in its business.
China’s central bank and securities regulator said in a statement that the tech giant is moving forward with its campaign to reform the companies and now their focus is on general supervision. The emergence of Ant in this sector was also seen as a challenge to the financial condition of the country.
In April 2021, Alibaba was fined $2.5 billion for behaving like a monopolist, a record for China. Guo Shuqing, the Communist Party boss at the People’s Bank of China, told in January that the government crackdown is essentially overkill as he hopes to boost economic growth, jobs and China’s competitiveness abroad.
