THE Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has taken action against a man for using securities trading accounts maintained by various people with several brokerages to conduct trades in a company's shares for his own benefit.
The man, named by the central bank as Oh Kian Guan, has been deemed to have contravened Section 201(b) of the Securities and Futures Act (SFA).
This prohibits the employment of manipulative and deceptive devices in connection with the subscription, purchase or sale of securities.
The company whose shares were involved in these trades was identified as Fuji Offset Plates Manufacturing Ltd.
In a statement released yesterday, MAS noted how Mr Oh had, during the period between July 1, 2007 and Aug 31, 2008, deceived the brokerage houses into believing that the accounts were opened and operated for the benefit of the respective account holders.
In reality, however, it was Mr Oh himself who was the beneficial owner of the trades in these accounts, said the MAS. For this offence, he was made to pay a civil penalty of $100,000, without court action.
As a "substantial shareholder" of Fuji, Mr Oh also contravened Section 137 of the SFA, which required substantial shareholders of listed companies to notify the securities exchange of changes in their shareholdings.
Mr Oh had failed to notify the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited and Fuji of the changes in his deemed shareholdings in Fuji, which took place during that July 2007 to Aug 2008 period.
This second offence resulted in him paying a composition amount of $18,000.
The Companies Act states that a person has a substantial shareholding in a company if he has an interest in one or more voting shares in the company, and that the total votes attached to those shares is not less than 5 per cent of the total votes attached to all the voting shares in the company.
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