Huang remained silent at the Beijing court after hearing his sentence, and his lawyer said the tycoon would probably appeal the verdict to Beijing's Higher Court within 10 days.
Huang, a high school dropout who built an electronics and home appliance empire in China, was detained in 2008 for unscrupulous corporate malfeasance and corruption. That year, his estimated net worth was US$6.3 billion.
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Huang, in his 40s, was also ordered to pay a fine of 600 million yuan (US$88 million), and authorities seized another 200 million yuan in assets as part of his conviction.
Huang resigned as GOME Corp's director and chairman in January 2009. Huang was held for more than a year, and was tried in April this year.
The court found him guilty of bribing or ordering others to bribe five government officials with 4.56 million yuan in cash and properties from 2006 to 2008.
The bribes were offered in exchange for "improper benefits" for Huang's GOME Electrical Appliances Holdings and his Beijing Pengrun Real Estate Development Company. Gome and Pengrun were fined five million and 1.2 million yuan, respectively, for their involvement in the scandal.
Huang was also convicted of insider trading of shares in the Shenzhen-listed Beijing Centergate Technologies (Holding) Co., Ltd., in which he was the majority shareholder.
He allegedly earned more than 300 million yuan in illegal profits.
Huang was further found to have engaged in "illegal business dealings."
After dropping out of school, Huang started building his fortune in his teens, running a roadside stall in Beijing where he sold radios and gadgets purchased from factories near his hometown in south China's Guangdong province. GOME is now China's largest electronics and appliance chain with more than 1,200 stores in more than Chinese 200 cities./ People's Daily Online (Kina)
