Quick Take: Shenzhen Court Upholds Former Huawei VP's Insider Trading Conviction

A Shenzhen court has upheld its verdict that Li Yinan, former vice president of telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., is guilty of insider trading.

In January, the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court sentenced Li to 2 1/2 years in jail and handed him a 7.5 million yuan ($1.1 million) fine for buying shares in tool manufacturer Wuhan Huazhong Numerical Control Co. Ltd. after a friend, Li Xiaotao, told Li Yinan that Wuhan Huazhong was considering a merger.

Li Yinan was working at venture capital firm GSR Ventures when he bought Wuhan Huazhong’s Shenzhen-listed shares in April of 2014, prosecutors said. Li Yinan and Li Xiaotao, then the president of Wuhan Huazhong, had first met at university, and had worked together at Huawei.

After Wuhan Huazhong's merger deal was publicly announced, its share price rose, earning Li Yinan and his sister around 7 million yuan, prosecutors said.

In June 2015, authorities arrested Li Yinan at Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport. His trial opened in March 2016, ending with a conviction this January.

Li Yinan then appealed against the initial verdict. But a second trial affirmed his guilt.

Before his arrest, Li Yinan, now 47, was hailed by Chinese media as a prodigy for entering university at 15 and becoming the youngest-ever vice president of Huawei at 27. He became search engine Baidu Inc's chief technology officer in 2008, and then joined Beijing Wuxian Xunqi Information Technology Co.

In 2015, he started the electric scooter business Niu Technologies.

Contact reporter Teng Jing Xuan (jingxuanteng@caixin.com)