Alibaba Gets Hit with a Whopping $2.8B Anti-monopoly Fee

China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba saw its shares rise in U.S. premarket trading about 6% on Monday, despite news over the weekend revealing that the company had been hit with a $2.8 billion anti-monopoly fee.

Alibaba had been fined 18.23 billion yuan, or $2.8 billion, by Chinese regulators as a result of an anti-monopoly investigation.

According to CEO Daniel Zhang, the company shouldn’t expect a material impact from the change of this exclusivity arrangement. The CEO said Alibaba will introduce new measures to lower the entry barriers and costs for businesses and merchants on the platform. The company will also continue to expand to smaller Chinese cities and rural areas.

The investigation into Alibaba had been opened up back in December with a focus around a practice that forces merchants to list their products on one of two e-commerce platforms.

China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) said on a Saturday that this practice holds back competition in China’s online retail market and “infringes on the businesses of merchants on the platforms and the legitimate rights and interests of consumers.”

“Despite the record fine amount, we think this should lift a major overhang on BABA and shift the market’s focus back to fundamentals,” Morgan Stanley wrote in a note on Sunday.

“We are pleased that we are able to put this matter behind us,” said Joe Tsai, Alibaba’s executive vice chairman.

Tsai said on Monday he is not aware of any more investigations regarding the anti-monopoly law.

In addition to the fine, regulators said Alibaba will have to file self-examination and compliance reports to the SAMR for three years.

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.