BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s market regulator said on Friday it had fined 12 companies for 10 transactions that showed illegal monopolistic behavior.
The companies included Baidu Inc, Tencent Holdings, Didi Chuxing, SoftBank and a firm backed by ByteDance, the State Administration for Market Regulation (MRSA) said on Friday.
The companies were fined 500,000 yuan ($ 77,000) each for behavior that led to market concentration, but did not exclude all competition from other companies, SAMR said.
Tencent said in a statement that it will actively rectify operations and report to the regulator in a timely manner in future cases.
ByteDance said a joint venture between its affiliate and Shanghai Dongfang Newspaper Co Ltd, both fined, never worked, and JV was disbanded in January.
Baidu, Didi and SoftBank did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
China has stepped up its scrutiny of its internet giants in recent months, citing concerns about monopolistic behavior and potential consumer rights violations.
The regulator fined Alibaba, China Literature backed by Tencent and other companies for failing to properly report antitrust transactions. He also fined the company involved in a car deal on Thursday.
Reporting by Yingzhi Yang, Cheng Leng, Pei Li, Yilei Sun and Tony Munroe; Edited by Christian Schmollinger, Karishma Singh and Lincoln Feast.