Liu, who through his lawyers has denied any wrongdoing, was released without bail and returned to China, and the company said in a statement he continued to lead the company and there was no interruption to day-to-day business operations.

The statement, in a question-and-answer format, was dated Sept. 6 and seen by Reuters on Friday.

Liu, 45, was arrested last Friday and detained for around 16 hours. A Minneapolis Police Department spokesman said on Tuesday that if there were any charges against Liu they would not be filed until completion of a criminal investigation that would not occur before Friday.

(Reporting by Tony Munroe in BEIJING and Meg Shen in HONG KONG; Editing by Mark Potter)