China said on Saturday it had imposed penalties of nearly 5.2 billion yuan (USD 765 million) on Trip.com Group, which operates the country’s largest online travel platform, over claims of monopolistic conduct.
Trip.com, which runs Ctrip and Skyscanner among other brands, was said to be restricting market competition through means such as entering into exclusive partnerships with some hotels and offering prioritised traffic allocation to them, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation said in a statement.
It prohibited some hotels from collaborating with competing platforms, the regulator added, and had also demanded some hotel operators who were operating on multiple platforms to ensure the rates for their platform were the lowest available online.
The regulator said Trip.com had been abusing its dominant market position in the sector since as early as 2020.
The regulator, which started its investigation against Trip.com in January, said it had confiscated “illegal gains” of more than 1.6 billion yuan (USD 245 million) from the group and had imposed a fine of over 3.5 billion yuan (USD 520 million).
