CHINESE e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding has dismissed a female employee who accused a former co-worker of sexual assault earlier this year, government-backed newspaper Dahe Daily reported late on Saturday.

Dahe Daily interviewed the employee, saying she had received notification of termination at the end of November, and published a copy of what she said was her termination letter.

It said the employee had spread false information about being assaulted and about the company not handling the case. "I have not made any mistakes, and certainly will not accept this result," the newspaper quoted the employee as saying in the interview.

Alibaba, China's largest ecommerce firm, was rocked by the sexual assault allegation in August after the female employee published an account on the company's intranet stating that she was assaulted by her co-worker and a client during a business trip.

Alibaba fired the co-worker accused of assault, but also dismissed 10 other employees for publicizing the incident. Chinese prosecutors later dropped the case against the employee's co-worker, stating that he committed forcible indecency but not a crime, but approved the arrest of the client in early September. Reuters

(c) 2021 City A.M., source Newspaper