Court

China will impose tougher penalties for financial crimes and prevent and resolve major financial risks to maintain national economic and financial security, China's top court said. 

Severe punishments will be imposed for financial crimes such as illegal fund-raising, manipulation of the securities and futures markets, insider trading and money laundering, Ma Yan, chief judge of the No.3 Criminal Division of the Supreme People's Court, told a news conference on Thursday.

"We will formulate, revise and improve criminal judicial interpretations for money laundering, insider trading, and leaking inside information and so on as soon as possible to ensure that criminal laws and policies are correctly implemented," Ma said.

Between 2017 and August 2022, courts nationwide adjudicated 117,100 criminal cases involving financial fraud and penalized 186,300 people, according to statistics released by the Supreme People's Court on Thursday.

There have been many cases of illegal fund-raising, many of which involved huge sums and numerous participants, seriously disrupting the financial management order and endangering China's financial security, Ma said. 

Statistics showed that 108,700 people were punished for illegal fund-raising between 2017 and August 2021.

As to securities fraud, the top court said that over the past five years, courts across the country adjudicated 229 first-instance criminal cases involving manipulation of the securities and futures markets, insider trading and trading on the basis of non-public information, involving 355 persons.

Xu Xiang, general manager of the Shanghai-based company Zexi Investment, was sentenced to a five-and-a-half-year prison term in January 2017 for stock market manipulation.

China will crack down on illegal activities in the securities market and promote the high-quality development of the capital market, according to an official document jointly issued by the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council, the cabinet.

Authorities in China have also enhanced the measures taken to combat money laundering. The People's Bank of China, the central bank, initiated a three-year action plan to combat money laundering in January 2022.

The action plan called for coordination and consultation among departments to crack down on all kinds of money laundering.

China's top court said courts across the country have adjudicated 1,154 first-instance criminal cases involving money laundering in the past five years. 

Global Times