BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese market regulator said on Friday it fined 12 companies linked to 10 agreements that demonstrated illegal monopolistic behavior.
Companies included Baidu Inc., Tencent Holdings, Didi Chuxing, SoftBank and a company backed by ByteDance, the State Market Regulation Administration (SAMR) reported on Friday.
The companies received a fine of 500,000 yuan ($ 77,000) each for behavior that caused market concentration, but did not exclude all competition from other companies, SAMR said.
Tencent said in a statement that it would actively rectify operations and inform 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, was never in operation and the JV was dissolved in January.
Baidu, Didi and SoftBank did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
China has stepped up scrutiny of its Internet giants in recent months, citing concerns about monopolistic behavior and the possible violation of consumer rights.
The regulator has fined Alibaba, China Literature, backed by Tencent and other companies, for failing to adequately report offers for antitrust reviews. He also fined the company involved in a car-related deal Thursday.
Reports by Yingzhi Yang, Cheng Leng, Pei Li, Yilei Sun and Tony Munroe; Edited by Christian Schmollinger, Karishma Singh and Lincoln Feast.