Former Kuaishou executive arrested for alleged corruption amid anti-bribery pressure on China’s Big Tech
- Zhao Danyang, a former vice-president at Kuaishou responsible for its content business, was arrested along with two subordinates
- The video-sharing company joins other tech giants, including Tencent, with employees that have been investigated for corruption
Kuaishou Technology, China’s second-biggest short video platform that recently went public in Hong Kong, confirmed on Thursday that its former vice-president Zhao Danyang has been arrested for alleged corruption.
Zhao joined Kuaishou in February 2015 and was mainly responsible for the company’s content business. Li Lei and Xu Juan, Zhao’s subordinates at Kuaishou, were also arrested for suspected misappropriation of company assets, Kuaishou confirmed to the South China Morning Post. The news was first reported by Chinese media outlet Tech Xingqiu on Wednesday.
While the arrest happened in September last year, Chinese police have yet to release any official statement.
Kuaishou did not elaborate on the details of the case or whether the company has any anti-corruption measures in place.
Kuaishou’s stock price tripled soon after the company’s IPO on February 5, although it has since pulled back from its peak value amid volatility in the Hong Kong stock market. Despite news of the corruption case, Kuaishou shares rose by as much as 4.7 per cent on Thursday.
The Beijing-based company is not the only tech giant in China dealing with suspected corruption. China’s crackdown on bribery, initiated by President Xi Jinping in 2012, has recently widened to the tech sector as the industry becomes more important to the economy. Connections, or guanxi in Chinese, are traditionally an important aspect of business dealings in China. Anti-bribery measures, which challenge the status quo, could severely disrupt the tech sector.