(Yicai Global) Nov. 18 -- Staffers from 15 Chinese new energy vehicle companies gave bribes to an employee of a third-party data management platform to gain NEV subsidy approvals as soon as possible, a recently released court judgment shows.

A man surnamed Xiang, who served as the senior manager of Shanghai Electric Vehicle Public Data Collecting, Monitoring and Research Center, accepted payoffs in the form of cash and shopping vouchers when reviewing the NEV firms' data access compliance, according to the website of China Judgments Online.

The 15 bribe payers included employees of Geely Automobile Holdings, BAIC BJEV, BYD, Chery New Energy Automotive Technology, Zhejiang Zotye New Energy Automobile Technology, GAC New Energy Automobile, and SAIC Motor's passenger vehicle unit.

A court in Shanghai's Jiading district handed Xiang a one-year sentence and fined him CNY100,000 (USD14,254).

The Shanghai EV data center is a non-profit organization formed in December 2014. The eastern megacity requires all NEVs entering the market to pass its muster, a car dealer who once applied for a subsidy told Yicai Global. One of the review processes is to send a car's data to the center.

The filing is required each year. Carmakers have to hold off and release new models in the second half if they cannot expedite the review process. Xiang, who is responsible for the data access process, took the initiative to shake down the carmakers' workers for bribes.

China finished building its national NEV regulatory system on June 21 last year. The NEV data of all car companies and local governments have been integrated with this platform ever since.

Editor: Ben Armour