Tech billionaire and Alibaba founder Jack Ma has not been spotted for at least two months amid the conflict with the Chinese regulators.
The Financial Times reported that Jack Ma was recently replaced as a judge in the TV show final ‘Africa’s Business Heroes.’
The report claimed his photograph was removed from the judging webpage and was noticeably left out of a promotional video.
A spokesperson for Alibaba was quoted as saying that “due to a schedule conflict Mr. Ma could no longer be part of the finale judge panel of the show.
Last month, China’s top market watchdog began an investigation into alleged anti-competition practices by the e-commerce giant Alibaba as Beijing tightened control of an expanding Internet.
The country also laid out “rectification plan” for Ma’s fintech venture Ant Group.
According to a report in TechCrunch, the People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, “summoned Ant Group for regulatory talks on December 26th, announcing a sweeping plan for the fintech firm to ‘rectify’ its regulatory violations”.
The banking authority laid out a five-point compliance agenda for Ant Group. The agenda is that Ant Group should return to its roots in payments and bring more transparency to transactions.
In a brief note, the State Administration for Market Regulation said that it is investigating Alibaba over its “choosing one from two” policy – a policy, that forces merchants to sell exclusively on Alibaba e-commerce platforms and skip rivals like JD.com.
