Jia Yueting, the former Chief Executive Officer of LeEco, and his sister Jia Yuefang, have both been prohibited by the Chinese government from traveling by plane for a year. Moreover, their ability to use the country’s railway system has been limited for the next 12 months and they are also prohibited from traveling using China’s luxury air and railway services. The siblings are among the 169 individuals listed on the China Credit website who are prohibited from riding the railway and air transport systems of the East Asian country. They are joined in the list by other Chinese citizens who have failed to pay their taxes, engaged in fraudulent activities, refused to purchase train tickets, or smoked inside a train coach. In the case of Jia Yueting and his sister, they have been restricted from traveling within China due to their inability to settle their debts and other financial obligations. In fact, Jia Yueting has repeatedly appeared in the list of individuals who have defaulted on their debt payments.
Jia Yueting’s financial troubles are attributed to LeEco’s aggressive expansion efforts. To finance the company’s expansion plans, the tech firm borrowed around $6 billion from different financial institutions. However, a number of projects that the company invested in failed to provide enough funds to pay for the tech firm’s maturing loans, forcing the business to default on its loan payments.
The Chinese government has repeatedly stepped in to resolve LeEco’s inability to repay its loans. Chinese courts have already frozen some of the assets of LeEco, Leshi Holdings, Leshi Internet Information & Technology Co., and other related companies after these businesses failed to repay their loans. A Shanghai-based court has frozen a total of $182 million in assets in July 2017 while a Beijing court granted the request of the China Construction Bank to freeze another $37 million in assets a month later. Meanwhile, back in January, the China Securities Regulatory Commission has issued an order for LeEco’s founder to return to China and personally settle the company’s debts with its suppliers and creditors, although Jia Yueting refused to follow the order, stating that he needs to remain in the United States to raise funds for the electric vehicle firm Faraday Future.