User Name:     Password:        Join Us
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
▪ China’s Market Regulator Reined in Internet Commercial Ads
▪ Stricter than the GDPR, China’s Privacy Law Provides Prohibitive and Control Oblig
▪ China kicked off the 1st national security review on DiDi
▪ Non-prosecution for compliance under ISO 37301 - Dentons lawyers take the world’s
▪ China’s Data Security Law is anything but frightening
▪ Alibaba fined USD 2.68 billion for abusing dominant market position in China
▪ China’s new “Blocking Statute” and the concerns it raised
▪ Survey result: how is bribery risk managed in China?
▪ China’s Administrative Punishment Law Awards Meaningful Credits for Compliance Eff
▪ Salon | How Would the Sanction on Pompeo and Blocking Measures Impact Foreign Comp
▪ Fees to speakers: academic exchange or commercial bribery
▪ China’s Personal Information Protection Law (2)
▪ China’s Personal Information Protection Law (1)
▪ Reading Into China’s Export Control Law
▪ English Translation of Export Control Law of China
▪ China Issued Its List of Unreliable Entities
▪ Demystify Corporate Social Credit System in China
▪ China is deploying “Operation Skynet” to further “Fox Hunt”
▪ China is to award whistleblowers heavily – foreign companies are more vulnerable t
▪ 130 Chinese headhunters arrested, involving breach of 200 million personal info
▪ Corporate Compliance Programs Evaluation Issued by US DOJ (Chinese Translation)
▪ The prospect is promising to commercialize Level-3 autonomous driving in China
▪ Intelligent and digital infrastructures are scheduled to accompany automatic vehic
▪ Will China illegalize VIEs?
▪ You cannot miss the gold rush under China's new Foreign Investment Law
▪ Classified Protection Under China's Cyber Security Law
▪ China is to fast-track law-making in autonomous driving
▪ What compliance obligations to meet to transfer data from within China?
▪ Chinese government uses digital forensics technology to dig bribery evidence
▪ A Chinese medical device distributor fined CNY 50,000 for bribing with Moutai
▪ How would Chinese E-commerce Law affect you (1)?
▪ Conflict between the culture and the Party’s rules: $70 gift money got a director
▪ "Excessive Pricing" from perspective of Competition Law
▪ Does China prohibit cross-border transfer of scientific data?
▪ Hypermarket Caesar jailed for ten years for giving “reward for go-between”
▪ How is environmental protection tax collected in China?
▪ China Redefined Bribery Anticompetitive in Nature
▪ China is to amend its Constitution
▪ Chinese government vowed to crack down on bribe givers more harshly
▪ China has its own Dodd-Frank; the award for whistleblower could be US$ 80K
▪ Chinese government may LIUZHI a suspect of wrongdoing
▪ Cooking clinical trial data is rampant and now criminally punishable in China
▪ 5th Viadrina Compliance Congress
▪ Does a compliance bird eat nothing?
▪ How Are Drugs Being Sold in China Despite the Anti-Corruption Crusading
▪ Chinese whistle-blower lauded while French boss fled out of China
▪ Life Sentence for Deputy Chief Justice of China
▪ Why Is Chinese Anti-bribery Law a Very Important Compliance Obligation?
▪ The Report on Corporate Compliance Management in China (2016)
▪ Use of "predictive coding" in eDiscovery document review…best friend or job replac
 
Home > Bribery
Chinese government vowed to crack down on bribe givers more harshly
By Henry Chen | 2017/10/23 21:19:07

The 19th Congress of the Communist Party of China (“19th CPC Congress”) vowed to see the Party self-governance exercised fully and with rigor and manifestoed some important policies in fighting corruptions and bribery.  For example, no place will be out of bounds, no ground left unturned and no tolerance shown in the fight against corruption.  Actions will be taken to “take out tigers”, “swat flies” and “hunt down foxes”.  As such, the giving of a bribe will be cracked down on equally harsh as the taking of a bribe.


In practice, it was not always the case that a bribe giver and taker would equally take the blame and punishment.  One of the reasons is that a bribe taker has power and the final say in dictating if and how the bribery would happen, and deserves more liabilities and harsher punishment.  In addition, a bribe giver could become a witness to a bribery case so that the prosecutor could easily meet his or her burden of proof.  Therefore, a bribe giver could be punished less and sometimes totally exonerated.  


For example, a state-owned automobile manufacturer and its Sino-foreign joint venture were found giving bribes to a high-levelled governmental official of National Development Reform Commission (“NDRC”), Mr. Liu, Tienan.  The SOE manufacturer paid RMB 1.21306 million (US$ 186,655) salary to the son of Mr. Liu from June of 2007 to December of 2012 while the son did not work even one day in its office.  


In addition, the General Manager of the JV proposed Mr. Liu to have the Chairman of the SOE issue a 4s shop license to Mr. Liu so that Mr. Liu could benefit from the not-easy-to-get license.  To make the bribery less obvious, a Mr. Zhang invested RMB 12 million to set up a 4s shop in use of the license that the Chairman issued for the benefit of Mr. Liu.  In the 4s shop, the son of Mr. Liu had “dry shares” up to 30% of the total equity interests.  By “dry shares”, Mr. Liu and his son did not make any contribution of the registered capital to the 4s shop and the name of the son did not show up as a shareholder in the governmental registrar.  Two years later, Mr. Liu’s son cashed out by selling his dry shares to Mr. Zhang and pocked RMB 10 million (US$ 1.54 million) proceeds from the sale.


For the bribery case, the Chairman disappeared for a while most probably for the investigation, but not long the Chairman came back to serve the Chairman of the SOE continuously.


There is another case where an executive of a popular automobile brand name was sentenced to life-time imprisonment for taking bribes or having proceeds from unknown resources as much as RMB 59.77 million (approximately US$ 9.2 million).  For this singular bribe taker, there were 48 companies caught giving bribes including advertisement agencies, PR companies.  However, out of the 48 companies, there were only 10 individuals that were punished criminally.


It is doubtful that a bribe giver should or could be punished equally with a bribe taker.  It seems fair and practical to have those who exchange power with money take more liabilities and harsher punishment.


Licensed to practice law in China and the New York State of the USA., Henry Chen is a senior partner of Beijing Dacheng Law Offices, LLP (Shanghai) (AKA Dentons Shanghai Office).  Henry was the former AP Compliance Director of Ford Motor Company.  Henry is the author of Risk Management of Commercial Bribery in China.  Henry is available at Henry.chen@dentons.cn


Tweet Like Email LinkedIn
There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.
    Enter your information below to add a new comment.
Author:   
Email:    (optional)
URL:    (optional)
Content:  
    
  Comment Moderation Enabled
Your comment will not appear until it has been cleared by a website editor.
The Compliance Reviews COPYRIGHT © 2013-19 All Rights Reserved. Supported by International Risk and Compliance Association and International Risk and Compliance Institute Limited. 沪ICP备10034943号-8
沪ICP备19033746号-4
沪公网安备31010502002477号