Jia Yueting, the founder of electric-vehicle company Faraday Future (FF) and an internet streaming service, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US on October 14, 2019. Photo: VCG

 
The founder of Leshi Internet Formation and Technology Corp (LeTV), who was placed on a national debtor blacklist and fled to the US in late 2017, was banned for life from participating in China’s securities market, and subject to a 241.2 million ($35.2 million) yuan fine by Chinese security regulators, LeTV said on Friday in response to questions about the fate of its founder. 

Chinese streaming service provider LeTV made the statement after some voices said that while punishing LeTV heavily according to law, it should not let Jia, the alleged  initiator of the crime, off suggesting the penalty targeting only LeTV isn’t adequate, news website 21jingji.com reported Friday. 

The company’s statement said it is aware of the allegation by some media reports and in order to avoid confusion among investors, it is seeking clarification of the penalty the company received from the  China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) on September 7.

"In addition to the company, the CSRC said it plans to punish Jia Yueting, who may face a lifetime ban from the securities markets and a fine of 241.2 million yuan, along with other former directors, supervisors, senior management personnel and other personnel of the company," LeTV said in a statement on Friday, according to the report from news website 21jingji.com. 

File Photo: VCG

According to a filing by the firm, the CSRC has completed its investigation into LeTV for its alleged illegal disclosure of information and fraud in its IPO, and ordered the company to make corrections, giving it a warning and imposing a fine of 600,000 yuan. The regulator also imposed a fine of 5 percent of the funds raised in the IPO, which amounts to 240 million yuan.

In response to the question about Jia's ban from the securities market, Jia's debt handling team also issued a statement on Friday, saying that the punishment received by the CSRC is only an advanced notice, not the final result, according to media reports.

No matter what the final punishment is, Jia will never evade responsibility and will take responsibility and no more than 10 percent of his creditor trust will be used to compensate leTV shareholders, the statement said, according to the report. 
Founded in 2007 by Jia Yueting, the billionaire chairman of Chinese technology group LeEco, LeTV was once seen as a potential Chinese technology titan, but was involved in lawsuits due to debt problems since 2017.

After running up a huge debts, Jia fled to the US in 2017 to escape punishment in China. After that, LeTV creditors have repeatedly traveled to the US for debt collection purposes, but the debt issue remains unresolved.

"There is no getting around the fact that I was first responsible for the overnight collapse of the LeTV system," Jia said in his statement in July, who also announced at the same time that a personal bankruptcy reorganization process he applied for in the US was completed on June 26, and the reorganization plan has come into effect.

Global Times