New Criminal Law targets bribery, cybersecurity

The ninth amendment of the PRC Criminal Law, which came into effect on November 1 2015, adopts a harsher tone on punishment and cracks down on two areas that have dominated the headlines: bribery and data protection.

Passed by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on August 29, the revised law increases punishments for bribe-givers and other corruption-related crimes. It also captures an enlarged scope of industries with respect to information security violations.

Breaking bribery

The monetary sums involved in bribes that were previously used to determine penalties have been replaced with general terms such as “relatively large”, “huge” and “especially huge” to account for discrepancies at the local level.

“The more general provisions give broader discretion to the authorities in determining penalties and, indeed, may vary depending on the location,” said Kyle Wombolt of Herbert Smith Freehills. “For example, what is 'relatively large' in Wuhan may not be the same in Shanghai,” he said.