Charles Li, the head of the Hong Kong stock exchange, said he cannot recall “specific aspects” regarding JPMorgan’s hiring of friends and relatives of senior Chinese officials while he was chairman of JPMorgan China between 2003 and 2009.
According to emails from his time at the bank published by the Wall Street Journal on Monday, Mr Li regularly recommended relatives and friends of senior Communist party officials for jobs or internships with JPMorgan.
“I am getting quite tied [sic] with all these requests but guess that most of my clients are getting to the age that their children are reaching intern age,” Mr Li wrote in one of the emails in 2008. “This is something nice to leverage on but excessive demand is a big problem.”