Lawsuit: NYC Bank Run by Chinese Communist Party

The New York City headquarters of one of China's largest investment banks is run by a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cell, a senior company banker claimed in a federal discrimination lawsuit.

The suit, which was filed against the bank in 2022 and recently obtained by the New York Post, accuses China International Capital Corporation (CICC) of requiring allegiance to the CCP and "adherence to the Party beliefs" by top executives.

American banker Andrea Bischof, 33, claimed she was passed over for promotion because she was not a Chinese national or a member of the CCP and accused the bank of issuing eight employee rules in Chinese — with the most important one being that they "must not violate the party and state policies."

She also alleged the bank set up party committees in the Park Avenue office.

According to the Post, CICC never responded to the allegations in court and Bischof voluntarily dropped the suit 10 weeks later.

Experts say the lawsuit reveals the increasing influence of the CCP in the United States.

"You have to understand that Chinese banks are not banks but tools of the Communist state," Derek Scissors, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told the Post.

Scissors is an expert on the Chinese economy and global Chinese investment.

"They're not going to have foreigners in positions of power," he said. "Senior executives have to be members of the party and they have to be Chinese."

In the 50-page complaint, Bischof recounted how she was recruited to work at the Chinese-owned bank from Bank of America Merrill Lynch in 2015 and was quickly recognized for her performance and success.

"You are a key member of the CICC team who consistently makes great contributions," Haizhou Huang, CCIC's head of global equities, told Bischof, according to court documents.

However, she claims that "[a]s early as 2016, CICC US's then Acting CEO, Elaine LaRoche ('LaRoche') indicated to Bischof and several other members of CICC US that there would increasingly be a focus on membership in and allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party ('the Party')," court filings state.

"Despite her stellar processional qualifications, proven investment skills, capabilities and competences and unquestioned outstanding personal moral and ethical character spanning her long career in the investment sector, Bischof experienced blatant bias and discrimination," the lawsuit reads.

The company listed "Eight Bottom Lines" of staff behavior in the equities department in a 2021 email that was reproduced in the court documents.

The rules are reportedly similar to the CCP's "Eight-point Regulations of the Center," which were introduced in 2012 and are designed to promote party discipline.

According to the Post, Chinese employees were emailed the directives in Chinese and "CICC's US EQ's administrative assistant was required to translate the email for the team, since Beijing conveniently did not provide an English version of the memo."

"The #1 rule was that staff must not violate the Party and state policies and major work arrangements," the lawsuit reads.

Internal CCP committees were also set up at the bank's New York office, including the "Committee on Serving National Strategy" and the "Steering Group for Culture Development," Bischof claimed, alleging that party members were installed to lead them.

"The Company attaches great importance to the development of primary-level Party building and the leading role of Party members," the lawsuit said.

CICC's China-based CEO, Zhaohui Huang, allegedly included party members' loyalty assessments as part of annual staff reviews as well, the lawsuit claims.

According to Scissors, CICC has frequently done business with American financial firms, including Goldman Sachs. The company's controlling shareholder is China Construction Bank, which is one of the largest financial institutions in the world and owned by the Chinese government.