The Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate jointly issued the "Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Laws in Handling Criminal Cases of Corruption and Bribery (II)" on the 10th, which will be effective from May 1, 2026.

According to reports, the "Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Laws in the Handling of Criminal Cases of Corruption and Bribery" has played a positive role in punishing corruption and bribery crimes since its implementation in 2016. With the continuous advancement of anti-corruption national legislation, the Criminal Law Amendment (11), the Criminal Law Amendment (12) and the Supervision Law were promulgated and implemented. In order to ensure the comprehensive, accurate, unified and effective implementation of the law, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate conducted in-depth investigations and studies, extensively solicited opinions, repeatedly demonstrated and improved, and formulated the "Interpretation (2)".

The "Interpretation (2)" insists on severely punishing corruption crimes in accordance with the law. In response to new situations and new issues in judicial practice, it further refines and improves the standards for legal application, achieves full coverage of the conviction and sentencing standards for corruption and bribery, and continues to tighten the criminal legal network for the punishment of corruption.

The first is to further clarify the conviction and sentencing standards for the crime of unit bribery and unit bribery, improve the identification rules of mediation and bribery, introduction of bribes, misappropriation of public funds, etc., improve the authenticity identification and price identification rules of specific property, refine the identification rules of the amount of expected profit-based bribery, and increase the punishment of new types of hidden corruption in accordance with the law.

The second is to clarify that the conviction and sentencing standards for bribery of non-state personnel, bribery of non-state personnel, job embezzlement, and misappropriation of funds shall be based on the conviction and sentencing standards for bribery, bribery (bribery by units), embezzlement, and misappropriation of public funds respectively, so as to implement equal protection for enterprises of different ownership types in accordance with the law.

The third is to improve the identification rules for actively returning stolen goods, encourage criminals to actively return stolen goods, and avoid and reduce the occurrence of damaging results. Improve the rules for the recovery of illegal income, increase the intensity of recovery of illegal income, and never allow criminals to profit from it.

People's courts and people's procuratorates at all levels must always maintain a high-pressure posture, severely punish corruption crimes in accordance with the law, perform their duties and handle cases with high quality and efficiency, and contribute judicial power to comprehensively consolidate the overwhelming victory in the fight against corruption. (Reporter Wei Zhezhe)