Alibaba working with police to investigate sexual misconduct at company

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba on Sunday said it is working with authorities to investigate allegations of sexual misconduct at the company after a female employee said she had been sexually assaulted by her manager.

“We have suspended relevant parties suspected of violating our policies and values, and we have established a special internal task force to investigate the issue and support the ongoing police investigation,” Alibaba said in a statement, according to The Associated Press.

The development comes shortly after an unidentified female employee reportedly wrote an internal post accusing her manager as well as a client of the company of sexual assault in her hotel room during a business trip to the city of Jinan. She alleged that she was forced to drink alcohol and was molested while her manager turned a blind eye.

Police in Jinan said in a Weibo post that they are currently investigating the case involving the female Alibaba employee.

She also alleged that her complaints were ignored by Alibaba’s human resources department.

Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang said he was “shocked, furious and ashamed” after learning of the incident, vowing to investigate and make any findings available to Alibaba’s employees.

The client who the Alibaba employee accused of assault worked for Jinan Hualian Supermarket. The supermarket company also said that it would cooperate with authorities, the AP reports, with the client in question being suspended from work during the investigation.