Former APLI executive director, sister fined RM7m, jailed

KUALA LUMPUR: Former executive director of APL Industries Bhd (APLI) Datin Seri Tan Bee Geok and her sister Tan Bee Hong were convicted of insider trading offences by the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court yesterday.

In a statement yesterday, the Securities Commission said they were sentenced to a five-year jail term and fined RM7 million each.

APLI was one of the companies under Supermax Corp Bhd’s group of companies.

Under Section 188 of the Capital Markets and Services Act 2007 (CMSA), an insider trading offence is punishable by an imprisonment not exceeding 10 years and a fine of not less than RM1 million.

Bee Hong was convicted of selling 350,000 APLI shares while in possession of material non-public information.

Bee Geok, who was APLI executive director in charge of finance then, was convicted of communicating the said nonpublic information to her between October 23 2007 and October 31 2007.

Bee Geok had tipped her sister on the audit adjustments proposed by APLI’s auditors, which resulted in APLI reporting a higher loss for the financial year ended June 30 2007, compared with the previously reported unaudited fourth-quarter results for the same financial year.

The audit adjustments led to APLI being classified as a PN-17 company. APLI made the announcements to Bursa Malaysia about the audit adjustments and its classification as a PN-17 company on October 31 2007.

The sisters were tried together in a full trial, where 13 witnesses testified for the prosecution and four witnesses for the defence.

In another case, the High Court yesterday dismissed an application by Datuk Seri Stanley Thai Kim Sim to be reappointed as a director of Supermax Corp.

It said the application was sought by Thai after he was disqualified as a director of Supermax, following his conviction of an insider trading offence in November last year.