The CEO and COO of Chinese e-commerce group Alibaba.com have resigned following an internal investigation into fraudulent sellers on the site. CEO David Wei and COO Elvis Lee are stepping down, and Jonathan Lu, CEO at sister company Taobao, was named acting CEO. The investigation by a non-executive, independent board member at Alibaba centred on the growing number of compliants against fradulent sellers on the Alibaba marketplace starting in late 2009. The probe found that about 100 of Alibaba's sales people, of a total sales force of about 5,000, as well as a number of supervisors and sales managers, were directly responsible for the fraudulent sellers, by either intentionally or negligently allowing them to evade the company's authentication and verification measures. While Wei, Lee and other members of senior management were found to be not involved in any of the activities that led to the complaints, the two top executives decided to take responsibility for the "systemic break-down in [Alibaba's] culture of integrity", the company said. Alibaba said it had shut down over 2,300 sellers as a result of the investigation, and it continues to work on repairing any shortcomings in its policies. The incident is not expected to have any material impact on its financial results.
