THE securities regulator has punished two firms for faking assets data to achieve a backdoor listing, stepping up a crackdown on illegal market activities in a bid to make China’s capital markets law-based.

    The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) said Friday that it will fine and reprimand top executives of Shenzhen-listed Anshan Heavy Duty Mining Machinery Co. for severe violations of information disclosure rules in negotiating asset restructuring with Zhejiang Nine Top Group.

    The CSRC will also ban Zhejiang Nine Top’s chairman from entering the domestic securities market for life.

    The CSRC said Zhejiang Nine Top had inflated its revenue and bank deposits while covering up an assets gap in order to restructure with Anshan Heavy Duty Mining Machinery.

    “The case involves a large amount of money, extremely dirty tricks and severe violations of the rules,” Xinhua quoted Zhang Xiaojun, spokesperson with the CSRC, as saying.

    Wrongdoers will be fined 4.4 million yuan (US$635,000) and several senior managers with Zhejiang Nine Top will also be banned from the securities market for five to 10 years, Xinhua said.

    Domestic media said the penalty is the “most severe” the securities regulator can impose in such a case under China’s Securities Law.

    China’s crackdown on illegal market activities has intensified since the mid-2015 stock market crash that wiped out almost US$3 trillion of share value.

    Liu Shiyu, chairman of the CSRC, told a news conference in Beijing on Feb. 26 that the regulator will not waver from reforms to make China’s capital markets more market-based, international and law-based.

    Liu also said earlier last month that the CSRC would take down law-breaking financial tycoons he called “giant crocodiles,” saying they will not be allowed to take advantage of retail investors. (SD News)