Prosecutors' agency to target financial crimes
April 16, 2009 | BY
clpstaff &clp articlesMore anti-corruption prosecutions also expected
China's top investigative and prosecution agency will focus on financial crimes in 2009, and the government is also likely to strengthen its anti-corruption efforts.
The country's chief procurator, Cao Jianming, recently told the National People's Congress (NPC) that the main task of the Supreme People's Procuratorate this year would be to “discourage illegal activities in finance, bond trading and real estate.”
The government has been relaxing its lending policies in recent months. It now seems that it will tighten its oversight over operations in those sectors it deems crucial to economic stability.
“On the other hand, with so many market participants making complaints against financial institutions in respect of losses out of investments and financial products,” said Fai Hung Cheung, counsel with Allen & Overy in Shanghai, “this seems to signal stronger intervention by the prosecution authorities in such cases going forward.”
Cheung called for prosecution authorities to work with the financial and securities regulators to agree on and publish “a consistent approach to how they propose to tackle those cases, and what their priorities are”.
According to Caijing magazine, Cao's work report to the NPC also placed considerable emphasis on the prosecution authorities' anti-corruption efforts and included some interesting statistics: in 2008, for example, more than 10,000 cases of commercial bribery involving state officials were reportedly investigated.
Cheung said he welcomed such information but warned of closer oversight in the future.
“With the new rules on commercial bribery coming into force late last year, I expect more prosecutions in cases of commercial bribery, not only those involving state officials, but also those which are purely within the private sector,” he said, referring to the Opinions on Issues concerning the Application of Law in the Handling of Criminal Cases of Commercial Bribery issued by the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate in November 2008.
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