{"id":862097,"date":"2026-08-20T14:34:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T14:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/862097\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T14:34:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T14:34:18","slug":"evergrande-property-founder-hui-ka-yan-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-by-chinese-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/862097\/","title":{"rendered":"Evergrande property founder Hui Ka Yan sentenced to life in prison by Chinese court"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chinese property developer Hui Ka Yan, founder of the Evergrande real estate group, has been sentenced to life in prison with the companies fined a total of $US2.3 billion ($3.2 billion), by a court in the southern city of Shenzhen.<\/p>\n

The decision marks a milestone in Evergrande’s saga after it collapsed with more than $US300 billion ($420 billion) in liabilities when Chinese authorities cracked down on excessive borrowing in the real estate industry in 2020.<\/p>\n

That triggered a crunch among many developers and brought on a downturn in the property market that has weighed on the broader economy ever since.<\/p>\n

The Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court convicted Hui, also known as Xu Jiayin, and Evergrande of large-scale financial fraud in inflating the group’s assets and concealing its liabilities.<\/p>\n

\"Chinese<\/p>\n

Evergrande was fined $1.85 billion in addition to Hui’s sentence. \u00a0 (Reuters: Aly Song)<\/p>\n

In a statement, the court said Hui also abused his position in orchestrating financial fraud and misappropriating company assets.<\/p>\n

Hui had faced eight charges including misuse of funds and illegally taking public deposits.<\/p>\n

It also sentenced several other senior Evergrande executives to prison terms of up to 18 years on charges including illegally taking public deposits and fraud, the court said.<\/p>\n

Evergrande group was fined 8.82 billion yuan ($1.85 billion) and Evergrande Real Estate Group was fined 7 billion yuan ($1.45 billion), the court said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Hui pleaded guilty<\/a> in April to various charges including illegal absorption of public deposits, fraud and bribery after he was arrested in China.<\/p>\n

China Evergrande, founded in 1996, defaulted on its debts in 2021.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Buildings<\/p>\n

China now suffers from an oversupply of modern properties. (Reuters:\u00a0Aly Song)<\/p>\n

It was the world’s most heavily indebted real estate developer before it was ordered to liquidate its assets.<\/p>\n

China’s fix for property crisis rewards marathon runners<\/a><\/p>\n

Local governments in China are offering marathon runners, AI experts and tennis players subsidies to purchase unwanted properties amid a lingering real estate downturn.<\/p>\n

Authorities in Hong Kong and mainland China earlier said their investigations found Evergrande had manipulated its financial data.<\/p>\n

Tactics used included prematurely booking revenue from property sales before completion and delivery of the apartments to buyers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Revenues were overstated by roughly $US80 billion ($112 billion) over 2019 and 2020, they said.<\/p>\n

The Chinese property market in 2026 is undergoing a deep structural shift from speculative hyper-growth into a permanent “stable contraction”.<\/p>\n

The Chinese real estate industry is struggling with an oversupply of inventory, while adjusting to a new economic reality where real estate is no longer China’s primary engine of wealth.<\/p>\n

Wires\/ABC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chinese property developer Hui Ka Yan, founder of the Evergrande real estate group, has been sentenced to life…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":862098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99,431750,431749,37943,354,26288,294998,184015,1003,431751,11262],"class_list":["post-862097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-china-property","tag-chinese-court","tag-evergrande","tag-fraud","tag-guangzhou","tag-hui-ka-yan","tag-life-in-prison","tag-real-estate","tag-real-estate-crash","tag-shenzen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/862098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}