What’s New: Sun Deshun, former president of state-owned China Citic Bank, pleaded guilty Tuesday to allegations of taking nearly 1 billion yuan in bribes.
The sentence will be pronounced at a later date, according to the trial court in Jinan, Shandong province.
Sun, 63, was accused of using his positions in several state-owned banks to offer favorable loans and credit to businesses between 2003 and 2019 in exchange for bribes totaling 980 million yuan ($154 million).
The background: Sun came under investigation by authorities in September 2019, about seven months after he resigned as president of Citic Bank, a subsidiary of state conglomerate Citic Group.
Sun allowed the Hong Kong- and Shanghai-traded bank to lend enormous sums to several large private companies, including debt-ridden HNA Group Co. Ltd., when they were in financial trouble, sources with knowledge of the matter told Caixin at the time.
Prosecutors said during Tuesday’s court hearing that Sun’s violations spanned his career as senior executive at the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of Communications and Citic Bank.
Sun’s downfall is among a series of graft investigations that rattled Citic Group and subsidiaries since 2019.
Contact reporter Han Wei (weihan@caixin.com) and editor Bob Simison (bob.simison@caixin.com)
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