Singapore charges Malaysian with spoofing stock market

KUALA LUMPUR: Singapore has charged a Malaysian investor with spoofing on the city’s securities market, said the financial regulator.

Dennis Tey Thean Yang was accused of buying and selling contracts for differences in the underlying securities of companies including Guocoland Ltd and Asia Power Corp with the intent to defraud other investors by artificially increasing or lowering bid and ask prices. He would delete the fraudulent orders after his trades, according to a filing made yesterday by the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the police.

The criminal charges are the first joint effort by the regulator and the Commercial Affairs Department, the police’s white-collar crime unit, since coming together in March last year to probe market misconduct.

The case comes as Singapore steps up its efforts to protect its reputation as a financial centre. The city has boosted the maximum fine for such offences in its civil penalty regime for insider trading, which was introduced in 2004.

Tey, who could not be reached for comment, is also accused of misusing other people’s trading accounts without consent.

In May, prosecutors charged two men for insider trading offences on two stocks before the companies received takeover offers. In an unrelated move in April, authorities raided a number of brokerages after the city’s stock exchange reported several cases related to alleged insider trading and market manipulation.

Tey faces 23 charges for offences related to Singapore’s Securities and Futures Act, including on a series of transactions through his accounts with brokers CMC Markets Singapore Pte Ltd and IG Asia Pte Ltd between October 2012 and January 2013, according to the filing. If convicted, he faces seven years’ jail and a fine of S$250,000 (RM750,000) for each charge. Bloomberg