China Braces To Hike Penalties Under Its Cyber Law; Alibaba And Its Peers Better Watch Out

China's cyberspace regulator proposed a series of amendments to the country's cybersecurity law, including raising the size of fines for some violations, Reuters reports.
The Cyberspace Administration of China aimed to introduce a penalty that would see critical information infrastructure operators facing a fine of up to 5% of their previous year's revenue or ten times the amount they paid for the product.
The CAC looked to raise the fines for some violations from up to 100,000 yuan ($14,371) to one million yuan.
In July, the CAC held Chinese ride-hailing giant DiDi Global Inc DIDIY responsible for violating three major laws and fined it $1.2 billion.
E-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd BABA and on-demand service platform operator Meituan MPNGY jointly handed out 92% of China's antitrust fines.
China raked 23.6 billion yuan ($3.53 billion) in antitrust fines in 2021, up 52 times versus 2020. Alibaba's record 18.2 billion yuan penalty and Meituan's 3.4 billion yuan fine over their monopolistic practices formed the bulk of the penalties for 2021.
China suffered two cybersecurity breaches this year with an Alibaba connect. The hack involved COVID health code mobile app run by Shanghai city and the Shanghai police's database.
Price Action: BABA shares traded lower by 0.94% at $88.62 on the last check Wednesday.