CHINA Law and Practice Contributed by: Alan Zhou, Jacky Li, Weiwei Gu, Steven Zhu and Jenny Chen, Global Law Office
ing, coercing or inducing others to commit illegal acts, according to Article 16 of the Guiding Opinions. 7.5 Recent Landmark Investigations or Decisions Over the past few years, as regularly reiterated by Chi - na’s top leadership, China has had zero tolerance for corruption and bribery, and anti-corruption has been and will be a key area for law enforcement. The Second Plenary Session of the 20th Central Com - mission for Discipline Inspection reaffirmed the impor - tance of maintaining a strong and persistent crack - down on corruption. The importance of the following actions and sectors was explicitly emphasised: • rigorously investigating and punishing corruption; • continuously promoting corruption governance in key sectors of concentrated power, capitals and resources; • distinguishing the key targets; • strengthening special rectification of corruption that jeopardises the interests of the masses; and • firmly investigating and dealing with corruption in new and disguised forms. In addition, the insistence on investigating bribe-pay - ing and bribe-taking as a whole was strengthened. The enhancement of international co-operation was also mentioned in this plenary session. Notably, a collaborative effort involving 14 ministries and administrations was initiated in May 2023, based on the Key Points for Crackdown on Malpractice in Pharmaceutical Purchasing and Sales and Medi - cal Services in 2023. This concerted action aims to address misconduct and irregularities prevalent in the medical product industry. Building upon this foundation, in July 2023, ten ministries/administra - tions announced their intention to launch a year-long nationwide campaign dedicated to combatting cor - ruption within the industry. The healthcare industry’s anti-corruption campaign persisted into 2024 and 2025, with a focus on address - ing ongoing misconduct and irregularities within the medical product sector. Enforcement authorities have launched nationwide investigations, paying particu -
lar attention to academic meetings and service fee payments to healthcare professionals, sponsorship and donations, irregular practices of foundations and association, corruption in new and disguised forms, etc. 7.6 Level of Sanctions Imposed From the criminal law perspective, based on the cur - rently available public sources, the length of a sen - tence for the crime of offering bribes in the healthcare industry appears to range from probation to imprison - ment of up to 11 years. The sentence for the crime of offering bribes to a non-state functionary generally ranges from probation to imprisonment of up to three years. For the crime of the offering of bribery by an entity, the majority of the persons in charge would have probation imposed upon them, and the minority would be sentenced to criminal detention or imprison - ment of typically up to five years. From the administrative law perspective, the sanc - tions imposed on companies in the healthcare indus - try, for example, have usually included a fine ranging from CNY100,000 to CNY3 million and confiscation of illegal gains. Revocation of a business licence is rarely imposed in practice. Duties to set up a compliance programme are set out in various regulations and guidelines in various levels and industries, such as the Measures for Compliance Management of Central State-Owned Enterprises effective as of 1 October 2022, the Guidelines for Comprehensive Risk Management of Central State- Owned Enterprises, the Guidelines for Compliance Risk Management of Commercial Banks, and the Guidelines for Enterprises on the Compliance Man - agement of Overseas Operations, etc. In terms of contents, for example, the Measures for Compliance Management of Central State-Owned Enterprises provide that a compliance programme must include the following elements: 8. Compliance Expectations 8.1 Compliance Obligations
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