Rail chief ally Ding given jail, USD400m fine in graft case

Ding Yuxin

A former ally of China’s disgraced railway chief was ordered by a Beijing court yesterday to pay the largest fine so far in President Xi Jinping’s anti-graft campaign, after being convicted of bribery earlier this year.
Ding Yuxin, also known as Ding Shumiao, was sentenced to 20 years in prison and fined 2.5 billion yuan (USD403 million) for paying bribes and engaging in illegal business, the court said. She was also ordered to forfeit 20 million yuan of personal assets, according to a post yesterday on the court’s Weibo social media service account.
“The number was extremely large and the violation was very serious,” Tang Bo, senior partner at W&H Law Firm, said in Beijing. Tang specializes in criminal law and isn’t involved in Ding’s case.
Ding’s sentencing comes amid a two-year anti-corruption campaign to bolster Xi’s power base and curb the graft that he’s warned could erode the party’s legitimacy. More than 80,000 officials have been punished for breaking party rules, according to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.
The fine is the biggest during the anti-graft drive and may be the biggest ever levied against an individual in China, Tang said. In September, the U.K. drug giant GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK) received the largest ever financial penalty of 3 billion yuan for offering bribes to boost its drug sales.
Ding, 59, was described in her September trial as the major financial backer of former Railway Minister Liu Zhijun, and was charged with intervening in bidding for railway projects worth about 185 billion yuan and engaging in illegal business operations, Xinhua News Agency reported at the time.
Liu was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve in July for abuse of power and taking bribes.
During Ding’s trial, prosecutors said she gave Liu 49 million yuan ($330 million) in exchange for helping her and affiliated companies win 57 railway construction projects, in violation of state regulations, Xinhua reported.
Liu presided over the ministry at a time when millions of yuan were wasted or stolen. In one case, at least 187 million yuan was misappropriated by individuals or companies involved in building the high-speed rail line from Beijing to Shanghai, the National Audit Office reported in March 2011. Bloomberg