The Thai SEC are growing some sharp teeth
On the back of the sensational news that executives from CPALL were caught with their hands in the cookie jar for front running the public by buying MAKRO shares before the takeover announcement, the SEC has continued on its crusade to clean the SET further.
The latest fines are now to
- WHA – The founder
- Somyos Anantaprayoon, current chairman of WHA Corporation Plc, was fined 500,000 baht for telling two newspapers — published on Oct 27, 2014 — that the company was in talks to acquire a listed company worth 50 billion baht, though such information had not yet been made public.
- BKI – The Chairman
- The SEC said that Mr Chai, as director and chief executive at the time, had revealed that BKI would give two stock dividends for every five shares held by shareholders on top of cash dividend payments for the company’s 2013 financial operations to those who bought BKI’s shares from Feb 24 to 25, 2014 ahead of public disclosure on Feb 28 of the same year.
- GLOBAL – The founders
- The SEC also fined Witoon Suriyawanakul, chairman of the management committee and director of Siam Global House (Global), and three other shareholders a combined 25.3 million baht for insider trading. The SEC’s investigation found that Mr Witoon bought 8.02 million shares and 3.5 million units of warrants of Global from June 29 to Aug 23, 2012 using accounts of people who have a relationship with him in order to take advantage of inside information regarding SCG Distribution’s planned acquisition of Global. The other three shareholders were viewed as accomplices.
- AMC – An investor
Granted, WHA’s and BKI’s indiscretions were due to speaking publicly about company events and not front running the public – some may say that this isn’t a serious offence, but in the spirit & letter of the law it definitely is as not everyone was privvy to the same information at the same time.
I’m quite curious to see what else the current head of the SEC, K. Rapee, will announce in the coming months
Source: Bangkok Post