KUALA LUMPUR (March 27): The Securities Commission is actively curbing capital market irregularities, contrary to the general perception that it is not taking action against activities breaching the Capital Markets and Services Act 2007 (CMSA), says chairman Datuk Seri Dr Awang Adek Hussin.

“I know, sometimes, even my friends say ‘why is SC so quiet?’, ‘it is not going after this company, capital market players’ all that. But we have to balance between being fair and aggressive,” he told reporters in a briefing on Monday (March 27) after the release of SC’s latest annual report.

“So, I want to put this to you in case you hear why we are not doing this or that. Not that we are not doing, we are doing. I guarantee you we are doing a lot of things, given the number of cases. 

“Much of my time is spent sitting down with the staff, discussing cases, what happened, and how we proceed. Every week, there are always cases,” he added.

Awang Adek also said the SC does not often publicise its efforts in curbing breaches of the capital market rules to prevent sensitive information from swaying market sentiment unnecessarily.

“You [can] see the number, not that we are proud, because we have a lot of cases going on, but it is also our effectiveness going after them,” he said.

Awang Adek laid out some of the achievements SC made last year in curbing irregularities, including the imposition of a total RM5.8 million civil penalties in 2022, compared with RM2.5 million in 2021.

The SC also recorded 10 convictions obtained in 2022 versus three in 2021, with court fines rose to RM12.9 million from RM7.6 million previously.

In terms of amount disgorged or restitution order by the Court, Awang Adek said SC recorded RM27.9 million in 2022 from RM16 million in 2021.

“So, we are really taking action, but... we have to do it in a way that we will not do it to create publicity, because these are sensitive things, we are dealing with listed companies, their share price will go up and down.

“We do not want to come up with an announcement on enforcement... until and unless we have very strong evidence. Because we do not want to go halfway, to go and create a scene and then nothing happens. In the meantime, companies will suffer, share prices will collapse for instance. So, this is something that we must be careful [about],” he said.

For more SC 2022 Annual Report stories, click here.