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Jail, massive fine for Gome's Huang

HOME appliance tycoon Huang Guangyu was jailed for 14 years this morning and given a record fine after being convicted of illegal business dealings, insider trading and bribery.

Huang, 41, once the richest person on the Chinese mainland and the founder of Gome
Electrical Appliances Holdings, was also fined 600 million yuan (US$87.86 million) and had 200 million yuan confiscated by Beijing No.2 Intermediate People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate said.

This was China's biggest fine against an individual, Xinhua news agency reported today.

Xu Zhongmin, the boss of Shenzhen-listed Zhongguancun Co who stood trial with Huang last month for leaking inside information to Huang, was sentenced to three years in jail. Huang's wife Du Juan was also jailed for three and a half years for insider trading.

Gome was also fined 5 million yuan for corporate bribery.

Huang did not say in court whether he would appeal but his lawyer Yang Zhaodong said the sentence was too severe, according to Caijing.com, a business news Website.

Listed as the mainland's richest man in 2004, 2005 and 2008, Huang is the highest-profile entrepreneur to face trial. He was arrested in November 2008, several months after he topped the Hurun China rich list for the third time.

Huang was charged with illegal foreign exchange trading in Hong Kong in 2007 and exploiting insider information to gain 3.48 million yuan in profits from shares in Zhongguancun.

He was also accused of giving 4.56 million yuan in bribes to a number of government officials seeking preferential treatment.

Media reports said his case has incriminated several high-ranking officials including Huang Songyou, a former vice head of the Supreme Court; Zheng Shaodong, a former assistant to the public security minister; and Guo Jingyi, a former commerce ministry official.

Huang was born in a farming family in southeast China Shantou City. He dropped out from junior high school and went to Beijing, where he rented a 100-square-meter outlet, named it Gome, and started selling home appliances when he was only 17.

He built the business into a billion-yuan concern, with more than 1,300 stores across China by last year.

Huang stepped down as GOME's chairman last year. But he still held roughly thirty percent of GOME's total outstanding shares. The company has been trying to clear its links with Huang to avoid being involved. It offered evidence to prove that the corporate bribery was Huang's personal act.



 

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