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Nov. 4 (NBD) – Alibaba's video streaming platform Youku's former president Yang Weidong was reported on Tuesday to be investigated by the police for alleged financial misconducts. An insider from Alibaba revealed the alleged financial misconduct has nothing to do with tax evasion.

According to Alibaba Digital Media & Entertainment Group, Fan Luyuan, CEO and Chairman of Alibaba Pictures Group Limited, will take over Yang's helm.

The Chinese behemoth confirmed the news and told NBD Alibaba is always a hardliner in the anti-corruption campaign. 

Yang's fall is on the heels of an anti-corruption report released on Monday by China's on-demand online services provider Meituan-Dianping.

The report showed Meituan-Dianping's probe team, supported by departments of business, human resources, risk management, technologies, IT, internal control and internal audit, has investigated 29 criminal cases related to disciplinary violation and brought 89 suspects including employees, partners and other accomplices to the public security organs for investigation and punishment since February this year.

Among these suspects, a senior director of the food delivery division was fired due to violation of company's top prohibitions.

This came within only half a month after China's online classifieds giant 58.com's corruption scandal.

On November 19, Song Bo, former vice president of the channel business division of 58.com, and Guo Dong, former director of the division, were reported to be arrested for criminal investigation of taking bribes.

An ongoing crackdown on corruption has been a trend among Internet companies in recent years. Other Internet firms such as Tencent, Baidu and JD.com also initiated internal inspections to root out corruption among their staff members. 

According to a list of corruption-related cases of Internet firms released by the China E-commerce Research Center in May last year, there have been 29 anti-graft cases in the Internet sector since 2010.

In order to better combat corruption, some companies jointly formed an anti-graft alliance and those with criminal records related to corruption will be blacklisted.

On February 24, 2017, initiated by JD.com, Trust and Integrity Enterprise Alliance was launched collaboratively by JD.com, Tencent, Baidu, Walmart China, P&G, Lenovo, Midea, Xiaomi, Meituan-Dianping, Vip.com, Li-Ning, Yonghui Superstores, fruits vendor Joy Wing Mau and other enterprises.

With regard to the anti-graft campaign, JD.com's CEO Liu Qiangdong once stated that managing a company means one needs to grant authority to others, which may lead to severe risks like corruption. To grant authority is to place trust on others and there should be a balance between granting authority and fighting against corruption, he added.

Email: wenqiao@nbd.com.cn