London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Oct 08, 2025

Exclusive: China's antitrust regulator bulking up as crackdown on behemoths widens

Exclusive: China's antitrust regulator bulking up as crackdown on behemoths widens

China’s competition watchdog is adding staff and other resources as it ramps up efforts to crack down on anti-competitive behaviour, especially among the country’s powerful companies, people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

Beijing’s plan to bulk up the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) comes as China revamps its competition law with proposed amendments including a sharp increase in fines and expanded criteria for judging a company’s control of a market.

On Saturday, the watchdog slapped a record $2.75 billion fine on Alibaba after an antimonopoly probe found the e-commerce giant had abused its dominant market position for several years.

The fine underscores the challenges ahead for companies, including global firms with operations in China, mainly in a tech sector that thrived during years of relatively laissez-faire market regulation.

It also mirrors the increasing activism of U.S. and European antitrust authorities in recent years.

The Beijing-headquartered agency plans to expand its antitrust workforce by around 20 to 30 staff, up from about 40 now, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

The watchdog also plans to delegate case reviewing power to its local bureaux and source additional manpower from other government bodies and agencies to handle cases that require extensive investigation, four other people said.

Budgets allocated for antimonopoly investigations, daily operations and research projects will also be increased, said three of the people cited above and one more person with knowledge of the matter.

The people declined to be named as they were not authorised to speak to the media.

The SAMR did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment.

“An increase in staffing as well as in the quality of the bureau’s law enforcement capabilities is a must for an antitrust push,” said Liu Xu, a researcher at the National Strategy Institute of Tsinghua University.

“Otherwise regulators won’t be able to handle multiple cases at one time, and the public will question how transparent the investigation process would be,” said Liu, a long-time advocate for antitrust enforcement.

GROWING SCRUTINY


The SAMR’s antitrust bureau was established in early 2018 after two other government departments were merged into it to form a single authority to police monopolistic activities.

The bureau has also been armed with new and more stringent laws in the past few months.

SAMR’s enhanced powers come as Chinese President Xi Jinping weighed in last month on the need to “strengthen antitrust powers” to rein in behemoths that play a dominant role in the country’s consumer sector.

“They didn’t feel they had the mandate to do it but now they do. And they are happy about that,” said a legal source close to SAMR, referring to the need to regulate the internet companies, which, he said, were seen as “a bit above the law.”

With growing scrutiny, executives of major internet firms are now required to make routine reports to the antitrust bureau for merger deals or of practices that could fall foul of antimonopoly rules, one of the sources said.

Reeling from the workload, the SAMR has started to expand its presence in more cities such as Hangzhou and Shenzhen on a trial basis, instead of handling the cases all in Beijing, to delegate case reviewing power to local bureaux, two of the sources said. It has also started outsourcing more research work, covering areas including economic and industry analysis, to scholars and its own consultancy committee to speed up cases in progress, one of the sources said.

For now, however, the investor focus is on who among the home-grown technology champions will be the next target of the Chinese antitrust watchdog.

“Other tech companies would be wise to assume they may be receiving the same level of scrutiny and penalty,” said Fred Hu, chairman of private equity firm Primavera Group, referring to the fine imposed on Alibaba.

“The heavy fine on one of the country’s dominant tech leaders also sends a strong message to the broader tech sector that the Chinese regulators, like their European counterparts, are serious about cracking down on Big Tech.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×