This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on May 3, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) said the Sessions Court has ordered two former directors of Kosmo Technology Industrial Bhd to pay a fine of RM1.45 million each and serve a two-year jail term for furnishing false statements to Bursa Malaysia Securities Bhd.

Former group managing director Datuk Norhamzah Nordin, 54, and former executive director Mohd Azham Mohd Noor, 54, were charged in 2011 with eight counts of furnishing false statements to Bursa Malaysia in relation to Kosmo’s revenue figures in its unaudited quarterly reports for 2006 and 2007.

“The revenue figures, which ranged from RM7 million to RM40 million, were found by the Sessions Court to be false, as they contained fictitious sales,” the SC said in a statement.

Kosmo’s accounts manager at the material time, Helen Lim Hai Loon, 49, was charged with abetting in committing the offences. Lim was fined RM560,000 and ordered to serve a one-year jail term.

This is the third false disclosure case revealed by the SC since March, whereby actions had been taken against the offenders.

In late March, the SC said three China-based companies — China Stationery Ltd, Xingquan International Sports Holdings Ltd and Maxwell International Holdings Bhd — were found furnishing false or misleading financial statements to Bursa Malaysia.

The offence, according to the SC in a March 29 statement, were among securities law breaches the three companies committed, and for which the companies — together with some top officials — had been reprimanded by the regulator.

On April 4, the SC announced that ACE Holdings Bhd, an investment company, had to return RM814 million to its investors who subscribed for its private placements in September 2015 and January 2018.

The SC said ACE Holdings had made an unconditional redemption offer to all investors who subscribed for the two private placements after the company was sanctioned by the regulator for providing false or misleading information in its private placement memorandums dated Sept 8, 2015 and Jan 5, 2018.