Prominent Chinese Insurance executive faces death sentence amid anti-corruption crackdown

Former China Life Insurance chairman Wang Bin has been imprisoned as part of Beijing’s ongoing crackdown on the financial industry. He’s the latest high-profile executive to face this fate. According to reports based on the /court ruling, Wang has been given a death sentence with a two-year postponement. After the two-year period, this sentence will be reduced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. In April, authorities had already indicated that their campaign against financial wrongdoing was far from finished. Wang has been found guilty by a court in Jinan, located in Shandong province in eastern China. He was convicted of accepting bribes totaling 325 million yuan (equivalent to $44.6 million or £35.7 million). Additionally, Wang, who also served as the Communist Party leader of the company, has been sentenced to one year in prison for illegally concealing 54.2 million yuan in overseas accounts. This case adds to the list of former leaders of major Chinese financial institutions who have been caught up in President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive within the industry, which is valued at $60 trillion (£48 trillion). Bao Fan, a prominent billionaire banker in China and the CEO of China Renaissance Holdings, has been “cooperating with authorities in an ongoing investigation” since he disappeared in February. In June, Fan Yifei, a deputy governor of China’s central bank, was arrested on suspicion of bribery and is currently under criminal investigation. He has also been expelled from the Communist Party. An inquiry into Liu Liange, the party chief of the Bank of China, was initiated in March. Mr. Liu is suspected of “serious violations of discipline and law,” as reported by authorities. Cai Esheng, a former banking regulator who retired a decade ago, faced prosecution last year on charges related to receiving “significant” bribes. In 2021, Lai Xiaomin, the former chairman of Huarong, one of China’s largest state-controlled asset management companies, was executed after being found guilty of corruption and bigamy. That same year, former China Development Bank chairman Hu Huaibang was sentenced to life in prison for his involvement in an 85.5 million yuan bribery case.