Stanley Thai loses bid to be re-appointed as Supermax director

PETALING JAYA: Datuk Seri Stanley Thai Kim Sim’s application to be reappointed as a director of Supermax Corp Bhd has been dismissed by the High Court.

The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) said in a statement yesterday that 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 2017.

To recap, Thai was sentenced by the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court late last year to a five-year jail term and fined RM5 million for insider trading offences committed when he was CEO of now-delisted APL Industries Bhd (APLI). APLI was one of the companies under the Supermax’s group of companies.

Thai was convicted for communicating non-public information between Oct 26, 2007 and Oct 29, 2007 to former remisier Tiong Kiong Choon. Tiong was convicted of two counts of disposing of a total of 6.2 million APLI shares while in possession of the same non-public information via accounts belonging to his mother-inlaw and his mother.

Meanwhile, Thai’s wife Datin Seri Tan Bee Geok and her sister Tan Bee Hong have been convicted of insider trading offences by the Sessions Court.

Bee Geok, former executive director of APLI, and Bee Hong were sentenced to a five-year jail term and fined RM7 million each after being tried together in a full trial, where 13 witnesses testified for the prosecution and four witnesses for the defence.

Bee Hong was convicted of insider trading as she was found to have disposed of 350,000 APLI shares while in possession of material nonpublic information.

Bee Geok, who was an executive director of APLI in charge of finance then, was convicted of communicating the said non-public information to her sister between Oct 23, 2007 and Oct 31, 2007.

According to the SC, Bee Geok 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 Practice Note 17 (PN17) company. APLI made announcements to Bursa Malaysia about the audit adjustments and its classification as a PN17 company on Oct 31, 2007,” it said.

An insider trading offence is punishable with an imprisonment term of not exceeding 10 years and a fine of not less than RM1 million.