EX-DIRECTORS GET ENHANCED SENTENCES

Ang brothers of Welli Multi jailed 6 months, fined RM400,000 by Court of Appeal

KUALA LUMPUR

THE Court of Appeal has allowed Securities Commission Malaysia (SC)’s appeal to enhance sentences meted out to former executive directors of Welli Multi Corporation Bhd, Ang Sun Beng, 71, and Ang Soon An, 67, for furnishing misleading financial information to SC in 2005.

The SC said in a statement the court imposed a sentence of six months’ jail and a fine of RM400,000 on each of the two brothers.

A Court of Appeal panel chaired by Datuk Mohtaruddin Baki, who sat with Datuk Seri Zakaria Sam and Datuk Abdul Karim Abdul Jalil, unanimously found that the crime committed was planned and intended to deceive investors and the capital market.

In meting out the deterrent sentence, the panel ruled that the courts had a duty to protect the capital market and the country’s economy.

In 2010, the Sessions Court convicted Sun Beng and Soon An for furnishing misleading revenue figures involving over RM141 million in fictitious sales in Welli Multi’s 2005 annual report, reporting a profit of RM5 million when in fact it was facing a loss of RM35 million.

Sun Beng and Soon An were sentenced to a day’s jail and fined RM400,000 in default of oneyear imprisonment, after pleading guilty to the charges under section 122B(a)(bb) read together with section 122(1) of the Securities Industry Act 1983.

The SC filed an appeal in the High Court against the sentence but the court dismissed it last year.

The SC subsequently filed an appeal in the Court of Appeal.

Welli Multi, later known as Energreen Corporation Bhd, was a listed corporation on the then Second Board of Bursa Malaysia.

The company was delisted on August 17 2009.

Sun Beng was at the material time the managing director of the company while co-director Soon An was a member of its audit committee.