Bangkok, September 17, 2015 ? The SEC revealed that the Settlement Committee imposed a total fine of 2,820,000 baht on Ratanachai Phatinavin, an executive of Eastern Star Real Estate Public Company Limited (ESTAR) for insider trading.

With the referral from the Stock Exchange of Thailand, the SEC probed into the case and found that during February 24-28, 2014, Ratanachai had used another person?s trading account to buy 9,000,000 ESTAR shares based on inside information he learnt as the CEO. Such information was about the company?s Q4/2013 performance with significant increase in revenue and profit which turned ESTAR from having approximately operating loss of 51 million baht to a net profit over 140 million baht in 2013. Such non-public information material to the change of ESTAR share price was later disclosed to the public in the evening of February 28, 2014.

The use of inside information to trade securities to gain unfair benefits over other investors is in violation of Section 241 of the Securities and Exchange Act B.E. 2535 (1992) which shall be liable to punishment under Section 296 of the Act. The Settlement Committee therefore imposed a 2,820,000 baht fine on Ratanachai.