Fallout from China stock plunge continues as securities official accused
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Version 0 of 1. China’s main anti-corruption agency has said it is investigating the deputy head of the country’s securities market regulator following the collapse of a stock price boom. Zhang Yujun, deputy chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), was suspected of “severe violations of discipline”, according to the Communist party’s “Central Commission for Discipline Inspection”. The one-sentence announcement late on Wednesday gave no details but the terminology usually refers to corruption. Related: Chinese reporter makes on-air 'confession' after market chaos Chinese authorities have launched investigations of brokerages, government employees and a reporter for a prominent business magazine following the collapse in prices that began in early June. Those moves suggested the ruling party might be trying to deflect blame for the decline, which prompted a multi-billion dollar government intervention. On Tuesday the police ministry announced executives of China’s biggest stock brokerage, state-owned Citic Securities, were suspected of insider trading and leaking sensitive information. They included the firm’s general manager Cheng Boming, chief operating officer Yu Xinli and deputy manager of its information technology centre Wang Jinling. In August the official Xinhua News Agency said eight Citic employees and one current and one former employee of the market regulator were suspected of illegal stock trading. The police ministry announced on 12 July that it suspected securities firms of “illegally manipulating securities and futures exchanges”. The market benchmark soared more than 150% beginning in late 2014 before hitting a peak on 12 June and plunging. The downturn triggered complaints that politically favoured insiders profited at the expense of small investors. Beijing responded by barring large shareholders from selling and ordering executives to buy back any recently sold stock in their own companies. |