Asia Tech Wire (Oct 28) -- Alibaba Group agreed to pay $433.5 million to settle a class action lawsuit initiated by U.S. investors, the company announced Friday.

The settlement agreement covers investors who held Alibaba's American Depositary Shares (ADSs) between November 13, 2019 and December 23, 2020.

In December 2020, China's State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) filed a case to investigate Alibaba's abuse of its dominant position in the market for e-tailing platform services in China.

Amd in April 2021, the SAMR ordered Alibaba to stop its monopolistic behavior of forcing merchants to sell only on its platform and imposed a sky-high fine of 18.228 billion yuan.

In response, some U.S. investors filed a class action lawsuit against Alibaba in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The investors alleged that Alibaba "violated federal securities laws by making numerous misstatements about the Ant IPO and about Alibaba's antitrust risk and exclusivity practices that artificially increased the stock price and eventually caused financial loss to the class."

After several rounds of mediation, the investors reached an agreement with Alibaba to settle the class action lawsuit for $433.5 million.

Alibaba denied any allegations of negligence, liability, wrongdoing or damage, saying it "entered into the settlement to avoid the cost and disruption of further litigation."