The Huizhou Intermediate People’s Court recently froze NVC Lighting former Chairman Changjiang Wu’s 130 million company shares worth RMB 1.1 billion (US $180 million), according to a Sinai report.

As the company’s second largest shareholder, Wu’s, assets in the company has repeatedly been frozen by Chinese courts as part of an investigation into alleged misappropriation of company funds. Wu has been detained by Huizhou prosecutors in January 2015 for suspected embezzlement of company funds.

According to the latest ruling, Wu’s assets will be frozen by the court for another 36 months, and will be effective as of Feb. 27, 2015.

Wu’s assetshad been frozen by local Chinese courts several times prior to the latest ruling. Guangdong Zhuhai Intermediate People's Court was the first court to freeze Wu’s assets for a period of two years on Sept. 18, 2014. Following the Guangdong Court’s ruling,   Chongqing Higher People’s Court and Huizhou Intermediate People’s court.

According to interpretations of Chinese law, courts can take turns freezing a defendant’s registered assets. Another court’s freezing order will become automatically effective after another court’s ruling expires. Hence, the period of assets frozen can become accumulative.

In January 2015, Wu was detained by Huizhou prosecutors for suspected involvement in embezzling company funds. NVC Lighting Board even presented related files that showed Wu had acted as a gurantee for other companies, and taken bank loans on their behalf. With some of the companies failing to pay up, more than RMB 500 million of NVC Lighting savings have been deducted by the bank.