Bribery Threshold for Non-Officials Cut from 1 Million to 200,000 Yuan Concerns Over Misuse in Equity Disputes and Targeting of Professional Managers First New Judicial Interpretation in a Decade Signals Crackdown on Private Corruption
President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign has expanded in earnest beyond the public sector to private enterprises. Chinese experts have raised concerns that the tightened penalty standards could dampen private-sector management and be misused as a tool in corporate disputes.
According to Chinese economic media outlet Caixin on Tuesday, the "Interpretation (II) of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate on the Application of Law in Handling Criminal Cases of Corruption and Bribery" took effect the previous day. It is the second set of legal application principles for corruption cases to emerge in a decade, following "Interpretation (I)" in 2016.
The key change sharply raises the conviction and sentencing standards for bribery involving employees of private enterprises, which had previously been applied more leniently than those for public officials. Under the former rules, a non-official had to receive a bribe of 1 million yuan (approximately 216 million won, or $140,000) to be considered a "large sum," subject to a prison term of five to 15 years. Under the new rules, receiving as little as 200,000 yuan (approximately 43 million won, or $28,000) can result in a prison sentence of three to 10 years. A new threshold also allows sentences of 10 years or more, or life imprisonment, for ultra-high-value bribes exceeding 3 million yuan (approximately 647 million won, or $420,000).
Ahead of the new rules' implementation, Chinese experts raised a series of concerns at a symposium hosted by the Hongfan Institute of Legal and Economic Studies.
"When penalty standards are lowered, issues that originally constituted regulatory violations can easily fall within the scope of criminal punishment," said Yin Shaocheng, a professor at the School of Law at Capital University of Economics and Business. "This increases the burden on business decisions at private enterprises and could even be misused as a tool in equity disputes or battles for corporate control," he warned.
Yang Hangyuan, a senior partner at Beijing Weiheng Law Firm, also said the new rules could be targeted at the group of professional managers at companies. In the day-to-day management of a company, there is a certain degree of discretion in matters such as fund allocation, business entertainment and expense processing. Yang noted that as conviction standards approach the level applied to public officials, past practices could come to be assessed as embezzlement or misappropriation of funds in the course of duty.
Huang Yingsheng, a former judge, offered a "cautious application" argument, saying it should be made clear that the new rules are flexible reference standards rather than mechanical or mandatory ones, and that they should not be applied retroactively.
In addition to strengthening sentencing standards, the new rules also clarify the conviction and sentencing criteria for the crimes of bribe-taking and bribe-giving by legal entities. Caixin reported that the rules also refine the recognition standards for brokered bribery, misappropriation of public funds and bribery based on expected benefits, and improve the rules for recognizing the return of bribes and the recovery of illegal proceeds.
AI-translated from Korean. Quotes from foreign sources are based on Korean-language reports and may not reflect exact original wording.
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