China's court system handled a total of 1.42 million cases involving peer-to-peer (P2P) lending in 2015, a work report by the Supreme People's Court (SPC) said Sunday.
Those cases involved 820.75 billion yuan (126.4 billion U.S. dollars), said the work report delivered by SPC President Zhou Qiang to the annual parliamentary session. Courts at all levels correctly recognized the differences between P2P lending and illegal fund-raising, concluding 58,000 cases involving illegal fund-raising, financial fraud and other crimes, and convicting 72,000 people, Zhou added.
The SPC last year issued judicial explanation on P2P lending, recognizing lending among enterprises with conditions, in a bid to satisfy the demands of small and medium-sized companies for investment and financing, according to the report.
The SPC added that it will strengthen study and trial guidance of Internet-based financial cases in 2016. The work report of the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP), which was delivered to the national legislature Sunday by Procurator-General Cao Jianming, said illegal fund-raising through Internet P2P platforms was a key issue that the SPP addressed in 2015.
The SPP prosecuted 12,791 individuals for illegal fund-raising, fraud and other economic crimes, especially the case concerning Internet-based P2P broker Ezubao, one of the biggest cases of its kind in terms of the amount of money involved.
In late January this year, the police said Ezubao was allegedly cheating 900,000 investors out of more than 50 billion yuan by fake investment projects. An executive from the parent company has admitted it was nothing but a Ponzi scheme. The case is still under investigation.
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