Shanghai Daily news

A local real estate developer has been fined 200,000 yuan (US$24,096) for signing fake contracts with brokers in order to inflate the value of its apartments, the Shanghai Industrial and Commercial Administrative Bureau announced yesterday.
The bureau said Shanghai Wanbang Enterprise Group Co violated the anti-fair-competition law. The 200,000 yuan fine was the heaviest punishment it could apply according to the law.
"It issued false information, which misled buyers," said bureau general inspection team chief Cui Weigang.
Between july 2004 and January 2005, the company's sales department published fake contracts on a Website run by the city's housing and land administration. The site allows home buyers to keep track of housing prices and see if apartments in a particular building are selling well.
The fake contracts were for apartments in Wanbang City Garden in Pudong, the bureau said.
The company signed 25 contracts for 17 apartments with two nonexistent buyers. For one apartment worth 1.4 million yuan, the company signed a fake contract saying the unit had sold for 12.12 million yuan.
The city's housing and land administration has revoked Wanbang's license to develop property.