China

Luc Despins, a New York bankruptcy lawyer, typically took on difficult jobs: After the energy company Enron collapsed years ago, he helped thousands of victims recover some of their money. But when Mr. Despins was appointed by a bankruptcy court last year to locate the assets of Guo Wengui, a Chinese property mogul and political provocateur who had failed to repay tens of millions of dollars to a hedge fund, the assignment presented very different challenges, the New York Times reported. In November, protesters appeared outside his home and that of his ex-wife.

U.S. prosecutors on Tuesday unveiled a new indictment against Sam Bankman-Fried, accusing the founder of now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange of conspiring to pay a $40 million bribe to Chinese government officials, Reuters reported. The new bribery conspiracy charge adds the pressure on the 31-year-old former billionaire, who now faces a 13-count indictment over the November collapse of FTX.

China spent $240 billion bailing out 22 developing countries between 2008 and 2021, with the amount soaring in recent years as more have struggled to repay loans spent building "Belt and Road" infrastructure, a study published on Tuesday showed, Reuters reported. Almost 80% of the lending was made between 2016 and 2021, mainly to middle-income countries including Argentina, Mongolia and Pakistan, according to the report by researchers from the World Bank, Harvard Kennedy School, AidData and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun is attempting to revive the fortunes of digital-assets exchange Huobi by shifting its focus back to China—with the aid of a digital citizenship program from a tiny Caribbean island, the Wall Street Journal reported. Sun is pushing the Beijing-founded company to win customers in Hong Kong and China, despite a ban on crypto trading in the mainland that forced Huobi to stop accepting business from there.

China Evergrande Group, the giant property developer that defaulted on its U.S. dollar bonds more than a year ago, has struck a crucial deal with a group of bondholders, bringing its prolonged debt negotiations close to the finish line, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Guangzhou-based developer became the highest profile victim of the Chinese government’s deleveraging campaign more than two years ago, which fueled a sharp slowdown in the property sector and ultimately led to dozens of dollar bond defaults.

China Evergrande Group on Wednesday announced plans for the restructuring of its $22.7 billion in offshore debt, which could set a template for distressed rivals and shape investor sentiment on the country's embattled property sector, Reuters reported. The world's most indebted property developer gave creditors a basket of options to swap their debt into new bonds and equity-linked instruments backed by the group and its two Hong Kong-listed companies, Evergrande Property Services Group and Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday sued Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun, accusing him and other defendants of illegally selling crypto securities and scheming to artificially inflate trading volume in crypto assets, Reuters reported. Beginning around August 2017, Sun and his companies Tron Foundation Limited, BitTorrent Foundation Limited and Rainberry Inc engaged in a scheme to distribute billions of crypto assets known as Tronix (TRX) and BitTorrent (BTT), the SEC said.

The world’s most indebted developer has reached an agreement with a group of major creditors for a plan to restructure its offshore debt, just ahead of a key winding-up petition hearing Monday, Bloomberg News reported. An ad-hoc group of offshore bondholders has expressed support for China Evergrande Group’s plan, and a restructuring support agreement was being drafted. The builder sweetened its preliminary proposal including terms of a debt-to-equity swap option and the amortization arrangement in a debt extension. Evergrande declined to comment on Sunday.

China's central bank said on Friday it would cut the amount of cash that banks must hold as reserves for the first time this year to help keep liquidity ample and support a nascent economic recovery, Reuters reported. Chinese leaders have pledged to step up support for the world's second-largest economy, which is gradually rebounding from a pandemic-induced slump after coronavirus-related curbs were abruptly lifted in December.

The Beijing office of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu has been fined $30.8 million for failing to adequately audit a Chinese state-owned asset management company whose former head was sentenced to death on corruption charges, Reuters reported. The office also was ordered to suspend operations for three months for mishandling audit and other work at China Huarong Asset Management Co. in 2014-19, the Ministry of Finance announced Friday. Deloitte was fined 211.9 million yuan ($30.8 million), the ministry said.