Confidence in Aim-quoted Chinese companies is likely to be dented after Jetion Holdings, a solar-cell manufacturer, dismissed its chief executive and three senior managers for alleged “breaches of their service contracts and fiduciary duties”.

The board believes the four are the operators of a solar-module producer and exporter that is in direct competition with Jetion. It says Roger Lijin Gai, Jetion chief executive, failed to disclose that “his wife was a shareholder in the competing business”. Public records also showed close relatives of the three managers were shareholders in the rival business.