[Photo/Sipa]
With the upcoming intensification of the fight against financial crime, a number of judicial interpretations to handle relevant cases and regulate the market will be timely made or revised, China’s top court said.
Chinese courts will impose tougher penalties, including increased fines for illegal financing, money laundering, manipulation of securities or futures markets, and insider trading, Ma Yan, chief judge of Criminal Division No. 3 of the Supreme People’s Court, told media recently.
“Some legal interpretations, such as money laundering, credit fraud and insider trading, are also being drafted or changed as soon as possible to improve the professionalism of criminal case handling,” he said.
In addition, judges have been urged to work with prosecutors and financial regulators to improve cooperation in fighting financial crimes together and preventing financial risks, he added.
Ma stressed the importance of solving financial crimes “in relation to our nation’s financial security, economic growth and social stability.”
Referring to what Chinese courts have done to fight such crimes in recent years, Zhu Erjun, the department’s deputy chief judge, said illegal fundraising cases accounted for a large part.
Supreme Court statistics showed that from 2017 to last year, courts across the country settled 60,200 illegal fundraising cases and fined more than 100,000 people.
“In the past five years, the annual number of such cases has exceeded 5,000, accounting for about 40 percent of all financial crime cases,” Zhu said, adding that the use of the Internet to commit such crimes is increasing.
Given that many criminals targeted the elderly, Chinese courts have also helped elderly people solve financial problems and recover their financial losses.
“We have made greater efforts to tackle criminal cases in which defendants defrauded seniors to buy fake services or products for the elderly,” Ma said. “We have also worked with other authorities to prevent scammers from transferring money and have tried our best to recover any losses.
“After finding loopholes and risks in elder-related industries, we sent judicial proposals to relevant government agencies or institutions to avoid scams that target elders at heart,” he said.
So far, Chinese courts have submitted more than 1,200 such proposals to protect seniors’ legitimate rights and interests through a long-term mechanism, he added.
In addition, in the past five years, courts nationwide have dealt with 1,154 cases of money laundering and 229 cases of manipulation of securities or futures markets and insider trading.
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