THE Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on Tuesday (Sep 3) issued a five-year prohibition order against a former representative of RHB Securities, following his conviction for false trading.
Effective from Tuesday, Chong Yew Mun Alan is prohibited from taking part in the management, acting as a director, or becoming a substantial shareholder of any financial advisory firm under the Financial Advisers Act.
He is also barred from performing any regulated activity, and from taking part in the management, acting as a director, or becoming a substantial shareholder of any capital markets services firm under the Securities and Futures Act.
Chong was convicted in May 2023 for abetting another individual to commit false trading, and for deceiving brokerage firms through the unauthorised use of trading accounts.
He was sentenced to 11 weeks’ imprisonment.
Between December 2015 and January 2016, Chong participated and assisted another individual, Lin Eng Jue, in a scheme to manipulate the shares of Catalist-listed Koyo International.
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This was done to attract a buyer to acquire the company via a reverse takeover, MAS noted.
On Lin’s instructions, Chong carried out trades of Koyo shares in 15 trading accounts. He used the login credentials of account holders to trade on various brokerage firms’ online trading platforms.
However, those firms did not give their consent for the trades to be placed on the instructions of anyone other than the account holders, said MAS.
Koyo’s share price jumped to S$0.40 on Jan 14, 2016, from S$0.16 on Aug 12, 2014.
It subsequently fell to S$0.056 on Jan 18, 2016, after the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading issued a “trade with caution” alert. Trading curbs were also imposed by several brokerages.
Following the crash, account holders suffered losses of about S$3.3 million, of which some S$1.1 million were borne by the brokerages and remisiers.
The authority said: “Chong’s offences have given MAS reason to believe that he will not perform financial advisory and capital markets services honestly.”
