China releases new anti-monopoly guidelines

China's State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) has introduced a new set of anti-monopoly guidelines that target some of the country's biggest e-commerce giants, reports Reuters. 

Following the suspension of Ant Group's IPO late last year, regulators announced they would be taking a closer look at cracking down on monopolistic practices. 

The new guidelines place further restrictions on e-commerce players like Alibaba Group’s Taobao and Tmall, as well as payment services like Tencent Holdings' WeChat Pay, barring them from forcing companies into exclusivity deals or using algorithms to manipulate the market. 

According to SAMR, the guidelines are intended to “stop monopolistic behaviours in the platform economy and protect fair competition in the market.”