He Xuemei arrested for 'misappropriating funds'

HONG KONG - 25 August 2017: The former labor union chief of Chinese telecom equipment maker ZTE Corporation has been arrested on charges of misappropriating funds, according to authorities in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen where the firm is headquartered.

The Shenzhen People’s Procuratorate issued an arrest warrant for four suspects including ZTE’s former labor union chief He Xuemei, according to a notice on the national procuratorate’s website on Thursday.

The notice did not name the other suspects or indicate the amount of money involved in the “misappropriating funds” charge.

He, 47, had been chairwoman of ZTE’s labor union since she joined the company in 1998, according to ZTE’s past annual reports. She couldn’t be reached by Reuters for comment.

She had also been a member of ZTE’s five-person Supervisory Committee since February 2004 until her resignation in September 2015, and was appointed director and general manager of ZTE Yihe Investment and Development Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary, in September 2014. Local media said He resigned her union position in June.

The supervisory committee’s role is to monitor the financial affairs and regulatory performance of ZTE directors and senior management to “safeguard the legal rights and interests” of the company and shareholders, according to ZTE’s corporate governance report.

A spokeswoman for ZTE declined to comment.

He is known for being active on social media and has 300,000 followers on China's microblogging service Weibo. She had also appeared in media interviews for her philanthropy as a former secretary-general of ZTE Foundation, the company's charity fund.

($1 = 6.6649 Chinese yuan renminbi)