KUALA LUMPUR (July 31): The country’s second largest financial services provider CIMB Group has come out to say that it has a zero tolerance policy for staff who misuse information or their positions in any subsidiary within the group to profit unlawfully or unethically.
This comes after the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) issued a five-year prohibition order against Alan Tay Yeow Kee, a former vice-president of CIMB Bank Bhd.
“CIMB takes compliance seriously, with internal controls and processes to ensure compliance, and would not hesitate to take strong measures against staff who fail to abide by the law and our internal compliance processes,” a CIMB media spokesman said in statement.
According to MAS, Tay had in 2011 arranged for another person to purchase, on his behalf, the shares of Qualitas Medical Group Ltd and Leeden Ltd which were listed on the Singapore Exchange at the time, Bernama reported.
Tay did this while in possession of non-public and price sensitive information that both companies had received takeover offers. He had obtained the inside information on the takeover offers by virtue of his position in CIMB, the report said.
“The prices of both Qualitas’ and Leeden’s shares rose after the takeover offers were announced by the companies and Tay made a profit of around S$30,000 (RM89,270) from the shares purchased with the privileged information,” Bernama reported, citing MAS.
The report added that in May 2017, Tay was convicted on three charges under section 219(2)(b) of the Securities and Futures Act (SFA) for insider trading. Three other charges were taken into consideration for the purpose of sentencing.
He was fined S$180,000 by the court.
The prohibition order against Tay was issued by MAS pursuant to Section 101A of the SFA and took effect from July 30, 2018.
The order will prohibit him from carrying out any regulated activities and from taking part in the management, acting as a director or becoming a substantial shareholder of any capital market services firm under the SFA.