China has issued fines totalling 3.6bn yuan ($527mn) to seven major e-commerce platforms for food safety violations, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) said on Friday.
The regulator said platforms, including Alibaba-owned Taobao, JD.com, Meituan, Temu-owner Pinduoduo and Douyin — China’s version of TikTok — had failed to check the licenses of stores on their apps and allowed “ghost food deliveries” from unverified vendors.
SAMR said in a statement it had “ordered seven e-commerce platforms to rectify their illegal activities… and imposed fines and confiscations totalling 3.597bn yuan”.
The legal representatives of the companies were also fined a total of 19.7mn yuan ($2.9mn), the market regulator said.
An investigation showed the platforms had “not strictly reviewed and checked the licenses of food operators entering their networks, and failed to fulfil the obligation of qualification review in accordance with the law,” SAMR said.
They had also signed agreements with order-transfer platforms, which infringed on consumers’ rights, SAMR said.
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