The Beijing Intellectual Property Court accepted on Sunday a case filed by Chinese short video app Douyin against internet giant Tencent over alleged monopolistic behavior. Douyin is alleging that its content is being restricted on widely popular apps owned by Tencent like WeChat and QQ.

The short-video platform on Tuesday filed the case with the court, asking it to order Tencent to cease its monopolistic practices and demanded 90 million yuan ($13.94 million) in compensation.

Douyin said on Tuesday that Tencent's WeChat started to impose restrictions on more than 30 short-video apps, including Douyin and Kuaishou, in April 2018 on the pretext of "regulating online short videos." While WeChat's restrictions for Tencent-invested apps, such as Kuaishou and Weishi, were lifted later that year, its ban on Douyin's video links has been effective until now.

Tencent fired back later in the day, claiming that Douyin's allegations were "maliciously framed" and that the short-video app has illegally obtained WeChat users' personal information through various methods of unfair competition.

In response to Tencent's statement, Douyin accused Tencent of making false allegations about illegal access to WeChat users' personal information and claimed that Tencent's restrictions on Douyin constitute a "monopolistic act of abusing a dominant market position to exclude or restrict competition," which violates China's anti-monopoly laws.

Douyin stated in the complaint that the monthly active users of WeChat and QQ have exceeded 1.2 billion and 600 million, respectively. Currently, there is no other operator in the market that can provide services equivalent to WeChat and QQ, which means that Tencent "holds a dominant position on the market."

"Undertakings holding a dominant position on the market may not abuse such position to eliminate or restrict competition," according to Article 6 of the country's Anti-monopoly Law.

Douyin's lawsuit comes as Chinese regulators step up regulations on tech giants. Beijing on Sunday issued antitrust guidelines on the country's platform economy, signaling a strengthened antitrust enforcement against monopolistic behaviors in the country's internet platform sector.

(With input from Xinhua)