Bursa reprimands CAP chairman and two directors

PETALING JAYA: China Automobile Parts Holdings Ltd’s (CAP) executive chairman Wang Yu Yun and two of the company’s directors have been publicly reprimanded and fined by Bursa Malaysia Securities Bhd for breaching the stock exchange’s rules.

As of yesterday, the Practice Note 17 company had yet to issue its accounts and annual report for the financial year ended June 30, 2017.

Bursa Malaysia said it had imposed fines amounting to RM1,135,200 on Wang – as at Sept 4 – for his failure to ensure the company’s financial statements are issued on time, as well as for breaches of other listing rules.

Executive director Chen Xun Ze was fined RM352,200 for the same offences.

“A fine of RM500 per market day was imposed on Wang and a fine of RM200 per market day was imposed on Chen for each delay of the financial statements until the financial statements are issued/announced,” Bursa Malaysia said.

The fines are subject to a maximum of RM1mil for each financial statement.

Meanwhile, independent director Zhu Guo He was publicly reprimanded and fined RM40,600.

Bursa said the delay in the announcement of the quarterly results ended March 31, 2017 and reissuance of the audited financial statements 2015 (AFS 2015), which led to the delay in the release of the subsequent financial statements, were mainly due to CAP’s failure to resolve the material audit issues raised by its external auditors on April 25, 2017.

“In addition, CAP had failed to demonstrate reasonable and expeditious efforts taken, including the settlement of the outstanding audit fees, to expedite the reissuance of AFS 2015 and appointment of the audit committee and company secretary, which had allegedly led to the company’s inability to review the financial statements and make the relevant announcements,” it said.

In particular, Wang and Chen were in a position but had failed, refused and/or neglected to address/resolve the audit issues with the external auditors, and were lackadaisical in the appointment of the company secretary and settlement of the outstanding fees to the external auditors.

Meanwhile, Zhu, according to the exchange, had failed to demonstrate that he had taken reasonable efforts to inquire, follow up, monitor and supervise the resolution of the audit issues and appointment of the company secretary.