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Summary
- Lai Xiaomin, the head banker of a state-owned lender in China, got sentenced to death by the Chinese officials over bribery charges.
- Mr Lai received US$277 million over one decade between 2008 and 2018. He was previously accused of misuse of power and sexual misconduct.
A former official of a state-owned bank in China was sentenced to death on bribery, bigamy, and corruption charges. Beijing’s drastic and rare move showed that China does not tolerate any serious corporate misconduct in the country.
The sentenced Lai Xiaomin received around US$277 million between 2008 and 2018. He was found guilty in Tianjin, a coastal town in China.
All of Mr Lai’s assets will be seized by the Chinese government.
According to the Secondary People’s Court of Tianjin, Mr Lai was hungry for money and did not care about the Chinese law. The court added that Mr Lai’s actions resulted in a potential financial threat at the national level.
The 58-year-old was one of the most high-profile persons who had faced serious charges for his white-collar crimes. Previously, Mr Lai was forced to leave the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2018 due to the abuse of power and indulging in the sexual misconduct. Speaking during a television broadcast, the former banker took responsibility for the alleged crimes.
After the sentence, some experts speculated that Mr Xi was trying to remove his biggest competitors, as he had been removing some of the most powerful people from their positions since 2012, as a part of his anti-corruption campaign.
Image Source: Shutterstock
Some Chinese corporate individuals said that the harsh sentence was likely to be favoured by the lower and the middle-class people.
China is infamous for passing death penalties. The government has time and again refused to disclose real-time numbers of sentenced individuals. However, sentencing someone over white-collar crimes is not common due to high pressure from the public.
Former Chinese premier Wen Jiabao used his state television broadcast to warn the court in the Wu Ying’s legal case after the woman was accused of financial fraud and had been sentenced to death. However, Mr Wen’s caution resulted in reducing the death sentence for Ms Wu.
Another high-profile death sentence was handed out in 2013 when the authorities executed Zeng Chengjie for economic crimes.
What was Mr Lai famous for?
Mr Lai took over Huarong in 2012 after he expressed his wish to expand some company divisions.
When Huarong was first launched, it was known as a “bad bank”, or an institution under the state debt so that the big lenders would not be overwhelmed with the public debt.
The “bad bank” shared business with CEFC China and HNA, some of the most scrutinised Chinese companies.
What does Mr Lai’s death mean for China?
According to the Deputy Regional Director for East and Southeast Asia at Amnesty International, Joshua Rosenzweig, the high-profile death sentence will send a particular message to the Chinese public:
