① Gravity Media announced today that due to preemptive publication of AIGC cooperation through illegal channels, the company and actual controller Luo Yanji were issued a warning letter from the Beijing Securities Regulatory Bureau; ② In the past week, many listed companies such as Fangzheng Electric and Simei Media have also been punished for credit disclosure violations; ③ legal sources said that in addition to penalties due to credit disclosure violations, subsequent refinancing and asset restructuring of these companies may also be affected.
Financial Services Association, January 10 (Reporter Fang Yanbo) Gravity Media (603598.SH) was punished by the regulatory authorities for posting a direct hike and stop incident on WeChat last year. Tonight, Gravity Media announced that the company and actual controller Luo Yanji were issued a warning letter from the Beijing Securities Regulatory Bureau.
According to the announcement, Gravity Media's related technology products such as AIGC and ChatGPT were in the hot period of high attention in the market at the time. They would sign strategic cooperation agreements and release them first to the public through non-statutory channels, without fully disclosing the risks, and the disclosure of relevant information was incomplete and unfair. As a result, the Beijing Securities Regulatory Bureau decided to take administrative supervision measures to issue a warning letter against the company and Luo Yanji, and record it in the securities and futures market integrity file.
At around 11:00 on May 10, 2023, Gravity Media's WeChat account published an article entitled “Gravity Media and Lanzhou Technology will jointly build the “Industry AIGC Big Model Joint Laboratory”. The article mentioned that “Gravity Media and Beijing Lanzhou Technology Co., Ltd. formally signed a “Strategic Cooperation Agreement” to jointly build an “Industry AIGC Big Model Joint Laboratory”, and will work together to create a marketing-type ChatGPT industry model”, causing market fluctuations.
At the time, the AIGC concept was very popular in the market. After the article was published, the company's stock price went up and down at 11:18 on the same day, and then blocked again the next day. Although the company disclosed the “Notice on Signing a Strategic Cooperation Agreement” after the market on the same day, disclosed the details of the above agreement, and issued risk reminders, the company's practice of preempting important matters through non-statutory channels still touched the red line of supervision.
The Beijing Securities Regulatory Bureau believes that the above acts of the company violate the provisions of sections 3 and 5 of the “Administrative Measures on Information Disclosure of Listed Companies” (Securities Regulatory Commission Order No. 182). As the then-chairman of the company, Luo Yanji acted as secretary of the board of directors. He failed to fulfill his duty of diligence and due diligence in accordance with the provisions of Article 4 of the “Administrative Measures on Information Disclosure of Listed Companies”, and bears the main responsibility for the company's related irregularities.
The reporter noticed that this is not the only incident where Gravity Media is suspected of “grabbing hot spots.” In November of last year, in response to investors' questions on the Interactive Easy platform, Gravity Media said that the company was one of the first partners in Kuaishou's boutique skits and was also a deep participant in the Starlight Project. In terms of production, in 2021, the company created the short drama “13 Cows” tailored for Wang Laoji, the sweet pet skit “Sweet Relationship” for Swisse, and teamed up with more than 10 skits to embed high content for Vipshop, etc., and eventually achieved a total exposure of 2.3 billion + through content and traffic boosting.
After the news was released, Gravity Media's stock price gained 6 ups and downs over 14 trading days from November 6 to November 23, with a cumulative increase of over 93% during the period.
Since then, the company has come forward and stated that in that year (2023), the company had not yet launched a skit business and had no revenue related to the skit business. Immediately, the company's stock price fell to a halt for 3 consecutive trading days in response. As a result, Gravity Media received a regulatory letter from the Shanghai Stock Exchange on December 20, clarifying regulatory requirements for disclosing information related to abnormal fluctuations in the company's stock price. The targets involved include listed companies, directors and supervisors, controlling shareholders, and actual controllers.
It is worth noting that in the past week, many listed companies such as Fangzheng Electric (002196.SZ) and Simei Media (002712.SZ) have been penalized for credit disclosure violations.
A legal source told the Financial Federation reporter that the fundamental purpose of information disclosure is to allow investors to fully understand the information so that investors can use it to make investment decisions. In the context of the current registration system, high-quality disclosure of information is particularly important.
“In recent years, the Securities Regulatory Commission has continuously improved the information disclosure system under the full registration system to crack down on illegal credit disclosure. In addition to corresponding penalties due to credit disclosure violations, the above companies have had a certain impact on the company's subsequent capital operations such as refinancing and asset restructuring.” The aforementioned legal source further stated.