NEW YORK (voa) – China’s main foreign exchange bank has agreed to pay $20 million in fines to settle charges of misconduct by the former management at one its New York branches.
Under the agreement, the Bank of China will pay $10 million each to the U.S. and Chinese governments. The bank has not acknowledged any wrongdoing, but has vowed to take steps to ensure that future misconduct does not occur.
Investigators say that among other actions, the Bank of China gave preferential treatment to customers who had personal relationships with its officials. This and other alleged misconduct between 1991 and 1999 is said to have caused significant losses at the bank’s New York branch.
A former head of the Bank of China, Wang Xuebing, was fired this week from his post as president of another of China’s four major state-owned banks – China Construction Bank. Mr. Wang was accused of negligence of duty in making loans to a handful of branches during his tenure as head of the Bank of China.
A former head of the Bank of China’s foreign exchange dealing operations in New York, Li Fuxiang, took his own life as investigators moved in. One of his predecessors vanished from public view in 1999 and is now in prison near Beijing.
