At the start of the year, Alibaba’s internal bulletin board buzzed with questions from staff as China’s antitrust officials began formally investigating the tech giant.
But the company’s executives had no answers for many of the questions. China’s tech industry had never experienced serious enforcement of the country’s competition laws.
Staff said the regulators had interviewed them and downloaded chat records from Alibaba’s internal communications platform. The officials had the power to take whatever data they wished, extending to surprise raids that could halt operations. As the investigation unfolded, executives told staff they had studied antitrust cases in the EU and US to prepare themselves.