Alibaba's Jack Ma urges employees to 'be relaxed' about recent lawsuits
Alibaba's billionaire chairman Jack Ma Yun has told his 20,000 employees that this is the "most critical moment" in the Chinese e-commerce giant's 15-year history.
Alibaba's billionaire chairman Jack Ma Yun has told his 20,000 employees that this is the "most critical moment" in the 15-year history of the mainland e-commerce giant.
In his annual letter to staff before the Lunar New Year, posted on Alibaba's official microblog yesterday, Ma urged employees to be relaxed about class-action lawsuits against the firm following a "recent series of matters".
A dispute erupted last month after the State Administration for Industry and Commerce said in a report that a big proportion of products sold on Alibaba's customer-to-customer platform Taobao were fakes.
The regulator also said it had held back the release of a report about Alibaba's role in the sale of counterfeit products last year to "avoid hindering" its initial public offering in New York.
A number of lawsuits have been filed in the United States in the wake of that revelation, accusing Alibaba of failing to disclose information to investors.
"I ask Alibaba employees to be at ease as to the lawsuits," Ma said in his letter. "The company gives great importance to it and we will deal with it in an objective, transparent and honest way.
"In fact, this is an opportunity for the world to know us better. If we are a listed company, this kind of problem becomes inevitable."
