Photo: CFP

Meituan, a large Chinese online platform, is facing an anti-monopoly lawsuit in the Beijing Intellectual Property Court, media reported on Monday.

According to a notice of acceptance of the civil case brought by a person surnamed Wang, Beijing Sankuai Online Technology Co and Beijing Sankuai Information Technology Co is accused of unfairly abusing their dominant market position in their Meituan app and online platform Meituan Dianping. 

Only now coming to light the notice was issued on October 29, 2020, according to China Economic Weekly.

Wang's lawyer, Chen Pengfei, said the two companies prevented customers using Alibaba's Alipay on online platforms like Meituan, one of the biggest online food delivery services in China. 

Meitutan's share price tripled since March this year.

In July, some users found that Meituan's own payment platform was at the top of the list of payment choices followed by WeChat pay and ApplePay, but Alipay was not given as a choice.

According to China Economic Weekly, Wang's lawsuit is apparently based on this grievance, yet Alipay was available as a payment method on the Meituan app on Tuesday, as a folded option. Ailpay, however, was not an available choice when tested by an iPhone 12. 

"Alipay was indeed not available on the Meituan app for a previous period of time. I had to use other online takeaway platforms," said a long-time user of the Meituan app, who apparently doesn't use Wechat Pay.

Meituan last Tuesday participated in a meeting, with five other internet firms including Alibaba, Tencent, JD.com and Pinduoduo, during which China's market regulator told the firms that it is stepping up supervision against unfair competition and regulating market order to maintain fair a market climate.

Earlier in November, China's market regulator has released draft anti-monopoly rules related to the internet economy to strengthen supervision of the country's large online service platforms.