Shanghai procuratorate releases plan for stringent punishment of securities crimes

The Shanghai People's Procuratorate released a plan for 24 measures to combat securities crimes in an effort to ease major financial risks, safeguard the market environment and ultimately contribute to the city's efforts of building itself into an international financial center.

The measures will also help improve effectiveness and efficiency in cracking down, preventing, supervising and managing such lawbreaking behaviors and vigorously promoting professionalism in handling such cases, senior officials from the prosecuting agency said during a media briefing on Monday.

Of the 161 cases in this field the Shanghai's procuratorial organs have processed over the past five years, four were included in China's Supreme Procuratorate's collection of model cases, and at least three were first seen nationwide.

Hu Chunjian, director of the department handling financial cases at the Shanghai People's Procuratorate, said the major concerns in these cases were that the types of securities crimes keep growing and involving more entities, and there is an emerging trend of transnational securities crimes.

"Also, over-the-counter crimes and trading-in-the-field ones are interwoven. Illicit industrial chains to commit such crimes have been formed. Some criminal activities repeat despite punishment," he said.

To address these issues, the plan introduced stricter measures, including further restricting probation and increasing fines, severe punishment for guilty intermediaries, and parallel investigation of securities crimes and money laundering.

Besides punishment, the procuratorial authorities have also worked to prevent such crimes by sending out warnings to entities on the verge of criminality and urging the Chinese Institute of Certified Accountants to strengthen management and ethics training, according to Hu.

A professional task force was also established in September 2019 to handle complex cases and promote standard practices, noted Wu Weijun, director of the Seventh Procuratorial Department of the Third Branch of Shanghai People's Procuratorate.

"These measures will help enhance the judicial system for the capital market, prevent and resolve major financial risks and deliver legal guarantees for Shanghai," Hu said.

Li Yange contributed to this story.