Chinese movie star Huang Xiaoming apologized over Weibo for ''incautious'' financial management on Wednesday, amid a series of stock scandals involving celebrities.
Chinese regulators are stepping up efforts to crack down on stock market manipulation, after several high-profile cases involving celebrities in China revealed regulatory loopholes.
Huang also said on his official Weibo account that he himself has never engaged in stock manipulation. "The so-called claim that 'Huang Xiaoming has manipulated 1.8 billion yuan' is pure rumor," he noted.
The issue drew wide attention after domestic financial news website caixin.com reported that Huang had a personal account related to the Gao Yong case.
In one of the latest moves, authorities moved to charge well-known stock trader Gao Yong with manipulating the shares of Jinghua Pharmaceutical Group Co, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) said on Friday. Gao was subsequently ordered to pay a penalty of nearly 1.8 billion yuan ($262 million).
"I want to stress again that I do not know Gao. My mother has managed my stock account and she entrusted the account to an agent surname Lu then she transferred to Gao. It is Gao who decided the trading while my mother and I have not participated in the manipulation," Huang explained.
In addition, Huang noted that he has never invested in stocks of Changsheng Bio-technology Co, an A-share-listed leading vaccine producer that was severely criticized in July for fabricating rabies vaccine production data and selling substandard vaccines for babies.
"My incautious financial management has indeed led to the incident and has had a bad influence, for which I'm very sorry and I will definitely learn a lesson from it," said Huang, adding he is willing to take full responsibility for negative public opinion.
"If Huang really did know nothing about Gao's manipulation, he is still likely to face administrative penalties according to securities law," Xu Hao, a lawyer at the Beijing-based Jingsh Law Firm, told the Global Times Wednesday.
Cases involving celebrities also highlighted the regulatory ambiguity over which party should bear investors' losses arising from manipulation or insider trading and how investors' interests could be protected.
