There’s a very interesting sentence in a New York Times story today about the Chinese company Alibaba.  China’s State Administration for Industry and Commerce has released a report criticizing illegal practices on Alibaba’s shopping web sites. Here’s the sentence that I as a securities lawyer found most interesting:

“The agency said that it had presented the findings to unidentified top Alibaba executives in a July 17 meeting at the company’s headquarters . . . , but that it had kept the results confidential at the time so as ‘not to affect Alibaba’s preparations for a stock market listing.’”

Alibaba made an initial public offering in the United States in September. If the story’s accurate, it means: (1) a Chinese government regulator deliberately withheld a government report so a Chinese company could sell its stock to U.S. investors at a higher price; (2) the Chinese company, knowing the Chinese regulator was going to issue an unfavorable report, intentionally withheld that information from offerees.