The world is a bit different when you look at it from a different perspective and what you might call Crime or Unethical might be totally acceptable in some other place. The China Hustle acts as a whistleblower and throws light on the fraudulent commercial activities that allowed the Chinese Companies to enter the US markets. Dan David a financial activist unveils one of the biggest reverse takeover scandals in American history.
“There are no good guys in this story, including me” Dan, the financial activist makes us understand that the financial sector has no good guys but a deliberation of the lesser evil is initiated. Dan is narrating his take on the sketchy dealings between the US and Chinese Companies. The US stock exchange doesn’t allow any company to be traded without proper audit and checks of various degrees but the backdoor entry was given to 400+ Chinese companies through the process of a reverse takeover. A reverse takeover is the allocation of a company that is registered on the stock exchange but is nothing more than a shell company. The various investors that cannot legally enter the market, take over the business of these shell companies and rebrand the whole thing into totally different entities. Voila! You have entered the stock exchange.
This gave rise to various companies that were highly overvalued and evaded being scrutinized as one proper audit might have collapsed the house of cards on which these shady businesses were running. The China Hustle brings the statements from various eminent personalities like Mitch Nussbaum and Crocker Coulson. The way of telling the story is quite engaging and makes you wonder how such a thing could happen. The documentary film then shows us how the various banks and institutions became too friendly with the activities of these companies but there were people who started short-selling these shady stocks. The documentary has an open end that tells us that various companies were under scrutiny but only one person went to jail and empathized with the broken financial system and its regulatory policies.
“Without strong watchdog institutions, impunity becomes the very foundation upon which systems of corruption are built. And if impunity is not demolished, all efforts to bring an end to corruption are in vain.”
Rigoberta Menchú, Nobel Prize Laureate
The documentary film puts emphasis on having a better watchdog for financial institutions that might have a substantial effect on the economy. The documentary has enough statements from lawyers, journalists, bankers and professors, to make sure everything is presented as it was. Jed Rothstein directed the project and even wrote the screenplay which is narrated by Dan David, with conviction.
The China Hustle is streaming on Netflix.
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