THE insurance regulator has stepped up its crackdown on the industry’s most radical investors in a bid to rein in risks.

    The China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) said Saturday that it would restrict Evergrande Life Insurance Co.’s stock trading activities for one year after accusing the insurance subsidiary of conglomerate China Evergrande Group of having engaged in irregular investment activities.

    The CIRC also lowered Evergrande Life’s ceiling on equity holdings to 20 percent of assets, from a 30 percent requirement, and barred two executives from the insurance industry for as long as five years.

    The firm violated investment rules and its short-term trading in some stocks last year had a “vicious social impact,” the regulator said, without elaborating.

    Evergrande Life joins Foresea Life Insurance Co. in receiving harsh penalties after CIRC Chairman Xiang Junbo vowed to harness “radical investments” by some insurers and drive out anyone who “challenges the regulatory bottom line.”

    In a separate case Friday, the regulator said that it had banned Yao Zhenhua, chairman of Foresea Life, from the insurance business for 10 years, accusing him of breaching regulations in its use of insurance funds.

    Both Evergrande and Foresea Life had been involved in a widely watched tussle of control for China Vanke Co., the country’s biggest property developer.

    Until late 2015, Foresea Life and its parent company Baoneng were little known to the public. But they then quickly built up a large stake in China Vanke, in a controversial move toward a rare hostile takeover of a Chinese blue-chip, leading to questions among industry and financial regulators about their motives. (SD-Agencies)