China Expat Favorite Sherpa’s Slapped with Massive Anti-Monopoly Fine

China Expat Favorite Sherpa’s Slapped with Massive Anti-Monopoly Fine
Apr 13, 2021 By eChinacities.com

Sherpa’s, a bilingual food delivery service popular with China expats, has been fined 1.16 million RMB by Shanghai’s market watchdog. The bilingual platform had been forcing partner restaurants to sign exclusivity agreements, unfairly compromising both the partners' competitiveness and that of other food delivery platforms, it was revealed on Monday.

Sherpa’s fine
Source: Davey Gravy

Shanghai Municipal Administration for Market Regulation said Sherpa’s, which operates in Shanghai, Beijing and Suzhou, violated antitrust laws and abused its dominant position in the English-language delivery market by restricting its partners from trading with others without justification.

An investigation was launched in June 2019 to look at the company's actions since January 2017. They found Sherpa’s forced its partner restaurants to sign an agreement not to cooperate with rival platforms. Those who did not sign were removed from the app.

The authorities found Sherpa’s action seriously weakened the competitiveness of its rivals and damaged the interests of both the merchants and consumers who used the platform. Such behavior was a violation of the company’s dominant market position and went against China’s anti-monopoly laws, the ruling said.

In December, the authorities decided to punish Sherpa’s to the tune of 1.16 million RMB, 3 percent of the company’s 2018 sales. In an announcement on Monday, Sherpa’s said it had cooperated with the investigation, accepted the penalty and had been working to rectify its wrongs since November 2019.

The news comes after Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba was last week issued a rather more hefty 18.23 billion RMB fine, also to violating anti-monopoly laws.

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Keywords: China expats Sherpa’s fine

3 Comments

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andybrocks2012

thats a massive fine?

Apr 14, 2021 13:47 Report Abuse