China’s antitrust services decided to hit one more giant – they will make a major meituan food delivery service pay for greed. The company prohibited trade firms to cooperate with competitors platforms – the authorities considered it illegal, writes The Wall Street Journal.
Familiar with the question Sources reported that the amount of the fine will be a billion dollars, and with the official statement of power will perform in the next couple of weeks. In addition, Meituan will have to seriously revise the principles of work.
Now the company operates under the slogan “Choose one of two” – that is, the company, whose products delivers Meituan, cannot use the services of other similar services. It is more difficult to surround small enterprises in such conditions – with a decrease in the number of sites for accommodation, they lose a significant share of profit.
China’s antitrust authorities began investigating against Meituan in April 2021. The company did not resist and pledged to help the investigation, as well as to comply with the legislation. In the same month, Alibaba received a record fine for the abuse of the dominant position. The Chinese retale giant had to pay 2.8 billion dollars to the Antimonopoly Office – four percent of the annual revenue in the domestic market. According to the legislation of the country, such a fine can be no more than ten percent.
And in June in the antitrust disorders of the country’s authorities suspected a taxi aggregator DIDI. Fears caused “opaque” pricing policy.
Meituan is the largest food delivery service in China, through which you can also buy products and book hotels. In 2020, the company’s revenue amounted to 17.8 billion dollars, and market capitalization reached a mark of 170 billion dollars. At the cost of Meituan is inferior in China only alibaba group and Tencent giants.