Park Avenue bank ran Chinese Communist cell, ordered workers to follow party rules: lawsuit
A Chinese Communist Party cell operates out of the Park Avenue headquarters of one of China’s largest investment banks, one of its top bankers claimed in an explosive court case.
China International Capital Corporation, the US branch of the Beijing-based multinational investment firm, was accused of requiring allegiance to the CCP and “adherence to the Party beliefs” by top executives, according to a federal discrimination suit filed against the bank in 2022.
American trader Andrea Bischof alleged she was denied promotion because she was not a member of the CCP or a Chinese national.
And she accused the bank of giving employees eight rules in Chinese — with the top one that they “must not violate the party and state policies” — and setting up party committees in the office.
China International Capital, which is ultimately controlled by a state-run bank, never responded to the allegations in court and Bischof voluntarily withdrew them 10 weeks after filing.
The bank did not respond to requests for comment from The Post.
The lawsuit shows the growing influence of the CCP in the US, experts said, and comes after The Post revealed how secret Chinese police stations, including one in Manhattan’s Chinatown, were being used to spy on the country’s nationals in the US.
“You have to understand that Chinese banks are not banks but tools of the Communist state,” said Derek Scissors, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and an expert on the Chinese economy and global Chinese investment.
“They’re not going to have foreigners in positions of power. Senior executives have to be members of the party and they have to be Chinese.”
Bischof, 33, detailed in the 50-page suit how she was recruited, from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, to work at the Chinese-owned firm in 2015 and was quickly praised for her performance as one of the company’s most successful traders.
“You are a key member of the CICC team who consistently makes great contributions,” said Haizhou Huang, CCIC’s head of global equities, according to legal papers.
But, she alleged, “As 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 papers say.
“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,” says the lawsuit.
In one 2021 email reproduced in the court filing, the company lists “Eight Bottom Lines” of staff behavior in the equities department.
The regulations, which were emailed in Chinese to Chinese employees, resemble the CCP’s “Eight-point Regulations of the Center” which were introduced in 2012 by CCP leaders and were aimed at promoting discipline within the party.
“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,” court documents say.
“The #1 rule was that staff ‘must not violate the Party and state policies and major work arrangements,” the lawsuit said.
And, Bischof alleged, the bank’s New York office then established internal CCP committees including “Committee on Serving National Strategy” and the “Steering Group for Culture Development” with party members as leaders.
“The Company attaches great importance to the development of primary-level Party building and the leading role of Party members,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit also alleged that CICC’s CEO, China-based Zhaohui Huang, used assessments of party members’ loyalty as part of annual reviews for staff.
CICC’s controlling shareholder is China Construction Bank, one of the largest banks in the world, which is owned by the government of China, Scissors said. CICC has regularly worked with US financial firms including Goldman Sachs.
“No reasonable person believes that a foreigner could be a senior member of a Chinese firm, and if they are, at the top it’s fake,” he said.
Bischof, who now works as a freelance yoga teacher and at a different New York-based investment firm, did not return a request for comment.
