People walk outside the headquarters of the China Securities Regulatory Commission in Beijing. File photo: VCG

China has been stepping up efforts to crack down on insider trading and other violations as part of a broader reform drive to ensure market order and protect investors.

In the first half of the year, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) imposed 63 administrative penalties that involved 27 companies and 181 individuals, with total fines of 985 million yuan ($143.91 million), jwview.com reported on Monday.

The CSRC imposed eight bans on market entry in the first six months of the year, according to the report.

There were 26 insider trading cases that led to 553 million yuan in penalties and accounted for 56 percent of the total amount, said the report, which noted that many of the penalties and more than half of the bans were related to insider trading.

 According to the website of the CSRC, there were nine administrative penalty cases of insider trading just in May.

"In terms of market size, China's capital market is relatively smaller than that of the US. But the high amount of penalties, nearly the same level as that of the US, shows that China's market supervision is no looser than other countries," Li Daxiao, chief economist at Shenzhen-based Yingda Securities, told the Global Times on Monday.

Stepped-up oversight, especially over insider trading, is also in line with China's commitment to open up its financial sector to the world, Li said.

Mergers and acquisitions involving listed companies are high-risk areas for insider trading, which seriously undermines the fair and sound market order and damages the legitimate rights and interests of the majority of investors, read a statement of the CSRC in May.

The statement further noted that CSRC will continue to crack down on insider trading and promote the capital market's environment, in order to effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of smaller investors.


Newspaper headline: Stock regulators heighten crackdown on insider trading