KUALA LUMPUR: The Securities Commission (SC) has charged licensed dealer Tiong Kiong Choon, 54, for insider trading of APL Industries Bhd shares in 2007, prior to the company’s delisting the following year.
The SC charged Tiong at the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court yesterday. Tiong was slapped with two separate charges for the alleged offences in October 2007. On the first charge, Tiong was alleged to have disposed of 2.21 million APL shares on Oct 26 that year, while possessing privileged information, which would have “a material effect” on the value of the shares.
The SC claimed that Tiong was privy to two sets of information on the finacial condition of APL, a unit of rubber glove maker Supermax Corp Bhd.
According to the charge sheet, Tiong had earlier known about the “audit adjustment proposed by APL’s auditor, which would result in APL reporting a higher loss for financial year ended June 30, 2007 (FY07).”
This compared with the unaudited fourth quarter of FY07 (4QFY07) results, reported earlier.
The charge sheet also claimed Tiong knew APL would be classified as a financially-troubled company, under Bursa Malaysia listing rules.
On the second charge, he was accused of disposing of four million APL shares on Oct 29, 2007, based on the the same information.
Tiong was charged under Section 188(2)(a) of the Capital Markets and Services Act 2007 (Act 671), an offence punishable under 188(4) of the same Act. He could face a jail sentence of not more than 10 years, and a fine of not less than RM1 million. Sessions Court judge Abdul Rashid Daud set bail at RM250,000, with one surety. Abdul Rashid also instructed Tiong to surrender his passport to the court.
The case will be rementioned on Jan 15, 2015. Deputy Public Prosecutor T Chelvakumar and Ng Chian Huey represented the SC, while lawyer D Krishna represented Tiong.
According to APL’s statement on Bursa’s website, the exchange regulator had delisted APL on Feb 18, 2009. APL said Bursa had delisted the firm, as APL had aborted its corporate revamp to rejuvenate its financials.
This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on December 10, 2014.