Wu Ying spared death sentence

China’s Supreme People’s Court rejected a death sentence for Wu Ying, one of China’s richest women who had been accused of illegal lending, The Wall Street Journal reported. Wu was sentenced to death in 2009 after a court convicted her of orchestrating a fraud scheme involving 11 investors and RMB380 million (US$60.3 million). However, the Supreme People’s Court on Friday said that while the fraud was “huge” and had damaged victims, it concluded that “on an overall assessment of the case, the death sentence may be stayed” and referred the case back to a court in Zhejiang province. News of the stay drew praise online, where Wu has become something of a cause célèbre. Some argued that Wu’s case highlighted the shortcomings of China’s financial system, which sometimes overlooks the illegality of private lenders like Wu because state-owned banks are unwilling to provide funding to small businesses.