Liu Minxia

    mllmx@msn.com

    MA LE, a former mutual fund manager at Shenzhen-based Bosera Asset Management Co. who was involved in China’s largest insider trading case to date, was sentenced Friday to three years in jail with a five-year reprieve.

    The former Bosera Select Equity Securities Investment Fund manager was also fined 18.84 million yuan (US$3.06 million) and the illegal profit of 18.83 million yuan he made through insider trading was confiscated, Shenzhen People’s Intermediate Court was told.

    It was widely expected that Ma would receive a sentence of at least five years in jail as the case involved 76 stocks and more than 1 billion yuan in trading volume, but the judge said Ma was given leniency because he voluntarily surrendered himself to the police and confessed to all his crimes.

    Considering the severity of the case, Ma’s punishment is light compared with other insider traders in China.

    Han Gang, a fund manager of Great Wall Fund Management, was the first Chinese mutual fund manager who had been jailed for wrongdoings. He was jailed for one year and fined 310,000 yuan.

    Xu Chunmao, from Everbright Pramerica Fund Management Co., was sentenced to three years in prison with a three-year reprieve and fined 2.1 million yuan in 2011.

    Li Xuli, from Bank of Communications Schroders Fund Management, was sentenced to four years in jail and fined 18 million yuan after he made about 10 million yuan in illegal profit.

    Ma had pleaded for leniency in court citing his humble background, saying he never spent the money he earned through insider trading and was willing to return all illegal profits in exchange for leniency.

    He confessed that he had made 18.83 million yuan in profit by investing 3 million yuan through three individual trading accounts while making use of information he obtained through his position at Bosera.

    Ma was detained in August, after he returned from the United States at the request of regulators.