China's court cases of the year

The No 2 Beijing Intermediate People's Court heard the case of Ding Shumiao, a businesswoman linked to the corruption case against China's former railway minister on charged with bribery and illegal business activities, on Sept 24, 2013.

The No 2 Beijing People's Procuratorate filed the charges against Ding Shumiao of Shanxi province.

Ding intervened in bidding for dozens of railway projects through railway ministry staff members and was reported to be engaged in illegal business operations valued at 178.8 billion yuan ($29.21 billion), the p rocuratorating body said in a statement.

That amount of money was a quarter of the total railway investment nationwide in 2010 (707 billion yuan) and also close to the total financial revenue of Shanxi province in 2010 (181 billion yuan).