China’s market regulator has opened its second-ever antitrust investigation into a domestic tech giant, targeting Meituan, the takeaway delivery and lifestyle services platform, in an escalation of its crackdown on big internet companies, reported the Financial Times.
The investigation, announced on Monday, comes two weeks after the same body fined Alibaba a record $2.8 billion after concluding that the ecommerce group had abused its market dominance.
“A formal investigation means an escalation. It’s highly likely that authorities have some concrete evidence that Meituan may have violated the law,” said Charles Feng, a Beijing-based lawyer at East & Concord Partners.