Suspended death sentence for ex-China bank head

A Chinese court has given the death with a two-year reprieve to a former head of China Mercantile Bank for crimes, including taking bribes and abuse of power.

The Changde Intermediate People’s Court in Hunan province also found Tian Huiyu guilty using undisclosed information for trading, insider trading, and leaking insider information, the official Xinhua agency reported in the last few hours.. A suspended death sentence is common in China for corruption cases.

If the convict does not commit new crimes and has appropriate behavior during the period in which the suspension is in force, his sentence can be commuted to life imprisonment. The court found Tian guilty of accepting bribes worth more than 210 million yuan ($29.3 million) between 1997 and 2022, when he held senior positions in several state financial entities.

Tian was convicted of abusing his power as chairman of CMB, one of the country’s largest banks, to interfere in the business decisions of its subsidiaries, causing “serious harm” to national interests.

The court also found Tian guilty of using privileged and confidential information to carry out illegal stock trading, obtaining a profit of almost 300 million yuan ($29 million), as well as disclosing such information to third parties. The judge considered that the acts committed by Tian were “extremely serious,” “negatively affected society,” and “caused enormous harm to the state and the people.”