Heaptalk, Jakarta – On Saturday (04/10/2021), China’s authority, through its official website, has announced that Alibaba was guilty of the case of an antitrust law violation. This case can be considered as an alarm for Indonesia’s Government to define the regulation concerning business monopoly and antitrust.
In late December 2020, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) reported that Alibaba, a giant company built by Jack Ma, was suspected of abusing its dominant power over its rivals. This abuse was reflected in Alibaba’s policy which stated that its business partners were prohibited from selling their goods in other e-commerce.
By the er xua yi campaign, that means one is out of two, the Company has forced their partner to sell their good in Alibaba exclusively. In the policy application, this Giant Company will deliver sanctions for stores that sell their goods in other rival companies. Meanwhile, the seller experienced that the trade competition in that platform is fierce, so they have to spend extra energy to market their goods. The Company’s punishment system has pushed its business partner to subject to its policy. Based on this condition, Alibaba has violated their partner’s freedom in expanding their business through another platform.
SAMR, as cited from Forbes (04/10/2021), said that this policy is counted as a strategy to vanish Alibaba’s rival while expanding its business. The situation, further, bolstered Alibaba’s market share in providing goods or services to its customers, yet it has snatched other companies’ business land in building partnerships. As a result, other companies are difficult to develop their business.
After several months of investigation, on Saturday (04/10/2021) China regulator decided that the Hanzhou-based tech giant was guilty of the case and fined the Company of 18.2 billion Yuan or US$2.8 billion. As cited in Forbes, this astounding number is equivalent to 4% of its domestic revenue in 2019.
The case is an alert for Indonesia’s authority to be more concerned about business monopoly and antitrust issues regarding the high-speed of start-up development across the nation. Nowadays, foreign capitalist aggressively invests their fund to several start-ups in Indonesia. For example, Tokopedia successfully obtained US$1.1 million from Jack Ma, and Kopi Kenangan earned US$ 109 million from Sequoia Capital. The same entrepreneur or investor who dive their business in specific fields and the incredible number of fundraising enables the leeway for entities to conduct business monopoly.
In addition, detecting monopoly practice is a big challenge for Indonesia Business Competition Commission (KPPU). The entrepreneurs and investors live in various countries that sovereign for their respective laws. Borderless business in the digital era also wrinkles monopoly detection as the limitation for the areas or market where the entities compete with each other is seamless.
To avoid business monopoly, the Government can conduct in-depth research concerning this issue. The study will assist the Government obtains insight into the impact, causes, and effective countermeasure to fend off this problem. The research outcome also is able to be a basis on finding the definition of monopoly in the digital era and be the basis of law construction.
