Hong Kong | The former chief of a big Chinese state lender was sentenced to death on Tuesday for bribery, corruption and bigamy, in a rare and dramatic example of Beijing's use of capital punishment for economic crimes.

Lai Xiaomin, the former chairman of Huarong Asset Management, was found guilty by a court in the coastal city of Tianjin of receiving some $US277 million ($356.5 million) in bribes between 2008 and 2018. The government will confiscate his personal assets, it said.