China's securities regulator has levied one of its largest ever fines for market manipulation, in a sign of increased enforcement efforts by authorities.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) fined an individual named Xian Yan 3.47 billion yuan (504 million U.S. dollars) for stock market manipulation, a figure that includes both penalties as well as being forced to give up illegal profits, according to the penalty decision announced by the CSRC on Thursday.
Xian Yan, the chairman of Shanghai-listed P2P Financial Information Service Co., formerly Shanghai Duolun Industry Co., will be banned for life from trading on the Chinese securities market.
Xian Yan was found to have given false information disclosures as well as practicing insider trading to obtain illegal profits from January 17, 2014 to June 12, 2015, the CSRC said.
Earlier this month, the CSRC fined another individual Tang Hanbo 1.2 billion yuan (174 million U.S. dollars) for manipulation of several mainland-listed stocks.
Among the accusations against Tang Hanbo was that he used multiple accounts to create the appearance that a large number of investors are trading a particular stock.
The cases of Xian and Tang alone already make 2017 a record year for CSRC fines, the third straight such record. The CSRC levied 4.28 billion yuan (620.6 million U.S. dollars) in fines in 2016, up 2.9 times from the previous year's record total.
