What’s new: Zeng Changhong, a former securities regulator overseeing new stock offerings, was expelled from the Communist Party and faces criminal charges for corruption, the country’s top graft busters said Friday.
Zeng was placed under party investigation six months ago. The 61-year-old official seriously violated party discipline, committed severe violations of duty and is suspected of crimes involving a huge amount of illegal gains, according to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and the National Supervisory Commission. The case was transferred to the judiciary system for criminal investigation.
“Zheng had long leveraged her position in securities issuance review to recklessly amass a fortune …, received money and luxury gifts as bribes… and was involved in illegal profit-making activities,” the anti-graft agencies said in a statement.
The size of the alleged bribes in Zeng’s case wasn’t specified, but several people said it could mount to hundreds of millions of yuan.
The context: Zeng was a veteran official at the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) after joining the agency in 1998. She served as a deputy director of the Department of Public Offering Supervision and a senior inspector in the Investor Protection Bureau, among others.
Zeng spent nearly 16 years in the commission’s public offering supervision department, having a strong say in share sale approvals, people with knowledge of the matter said.
Zeng is among a number of securities regulatory officials who have been probed in recent years as Beijing intensified a crackdown on financial market violations. In 2015, Li Liang, a colleague of Zeng’s in the Department of Public Offering Supervision, was expelled from the party on corruption allegations. In January this year, Tong Daochi, another former CSRC official and former party head of Sanya, pleaded guilty to charges of insider trading and accepting 274 million yuan ($43 million) in bribes.
Contact reporter Han Wei (weihan@caixin.com) and editor Bob Simison (bob.simison@caixin.com)
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