Citic Pacific chairman finally puts the record straight
It would appear that Citic Pacific has been misunderstood. A lot of people felt that Citic was trying to hinder an investigation by Hong Kong police into accusations that the bank had committed fraud over its HK$15.5 billion derivatives loss in September 2008.
Some people took this view after Citic took court action to try to prevent police looking at documents it took from Citic's offices at the start of its investigation.
Then it went to court again because it objected to paying the police costs in its earlier action.
But it transpires that rather than hindering the investigation, the company, unbeknown to outsiders, has actually been trying speed up the investigation.
Citic Pacific chairman Chang Zhenming explained yesterday at a meeting to announce the company's first-half results that Citic had set up a special committee of people 'unrelated to the incident' to facilitate the investigation.