ByteDance employee fined nine times his profit for insider trading by China’s market regulator

A ByteDance employee was fined nine times the 54,880 yuan (US$8,845) profit he made from selling 55,700 shares of Shenzhen-listed COL Digital Publishing

The ByteDance employee was involved in discussions with COL Digital to expand its audio business

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A ByteDance employee has been heavily penalised for insider trading. Photo: AFP

Published: 8:54pm, 28 Jul 2021Updated: 10:55pm, 28 Jul 2021

A ByteDance employee has been heavily fined from profiting from insider information of a digital publishing company it had partnered with, China’s market regulator said on Monday.

Wang Teng, 29, an employee of ByteDance’s Tomato Novel platform in Tianjin, was fined nearly nine times the 54,880 yuan (US$8,845) profit he made from selling 55,700 shares of Shenzhen-listed COL Digital Publishing, an investigation by the Dalian branch of the China Securities Regulatory Commission found.

Tomato Novel, ByteDance’s free online literature platform, planned to develop its audio business in February last year, in which Wang was involved. He began discussions with COL Digital for a potential partnership since March 4, according to the document by the CSRC. His involvement constituted insider information and was a violation of China’s securities laws, the CSRC said.

ByteDance and COL Digital had signed a cooperation framework agreement on July 14 last year, which the publishing firm disclosed in an exchange filing on July 15, 2020.

ByteDance’s Tomato Novel has more than four million web novels. Photo: Handout

Wang bought the shares of COL Digital on July 13 and 15 last year, and sold them on July 16, 2020.