KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 6): Lawyer Datuk Sreesanthan Eliathamby has lost in his appeal against a High Court decision in November 2020 that found he had engaged in insider trading of Worldwide Holdings Bhd shares in 2006.

In a statement on Tuesday (Sept 6), the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) said the Court of Appeal had on Sept 5 affirmed the High Court’s decision.

It said Sreesanthan acquired a total of 600,000 Worldwide shares between June 7 and July 11, 2006 while in possession of material non-public information relating to the proposed privatisation of Worldwide by Perbadanan Kemajuan Negeri Selangor.

It said that at the material time, Sreesanthan was a senior partner in a law firm which was engaged to act as the legal adviser of the proposed privatisation of Worldwide.

In dismissing Sreesanthan’s appeal, the Court of Appeal unanimously found no merits in the appeal and affirmed the judgement of the High Court as well as ordered him to pay costs of RM50,000 to the SC.

The High Court had ordered Sreesanthan to pay the SC RM1.99 million, which is three times the profits gained as a result of the insider trading.

In addition, he was also ordered to pay to the SC a civil penalty of RM1 million and was barred from being a director of any listed company for 10 years starting from Nov 18, 2020.