SEC has announced that it has taken legal proceedings against Mr. Surin Banyongponglert in the case of manipulation the share price of Pico (Thailand) Public Company Limited (PICO). The SEC is in the process of bringing the case to the Civil Court for the imposition of the highest penalty rate in accordance with the Securities and Exchange Act. In addition, the case has been reported to the Anti-money Laundering Office (AMLO) to take further proceedings.
According
to the information from the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) and SEC’s further investigation, it was
found that from 25 July to 9 August 2017 (a total of 11 business days) Surin had been continuously trading PICO’s shares in his four
securities trading accounts, that is, he submitted trading
orders in a manner to drive up the share price by submitting a large number of
trading orders. As a result, the price
and trading volume of PICO’s shares were not in a normal market condition, and
investors in general were misled to understand that a large number of investors
were interested in buying PICO’s shares.
Accordingly, Mr.
Surin Banyongponglert had
benefited from the sale of shares by receiving the benefits from the difference
of the purchase price and sell price, and thereby causing damage to investors.
During
these transactions, SET, after having found such trading orders, had given
warnings to four securities companies that provided trading service to Surin, but
SET still found that he continued to submit
trading orders in the same manner.
The
act of Surin constituted a violation of Section 244/3 and will be subject to punishment under Section 296,
Section 296/1, and Section 296/2 of the Securities and Exchange Act B.E. 2535 (1992), which was
amended by the Securities and Exchange Act (No.5) B.E. 2559 (2016).
The
Civil Sanction Committee agreed with SEC
to enforce civil sanctions on Surin.
However, he did not agree to comply with civil sanctions determined by the Civil Sanction Committee. SEC, therefore, requests the public
prosecutor in writing to file a lawsuit against Surin in the Civil, pressing for civil sanctions with the highest legal
penalty. SEC has sought the Court’s ruling to require Surin to pay a
civil fine, compensate the benefits received from committing the offense, and reimburse
the investigative expenses to, in a total of 24.54 million
baht, to prohibit him from securities trading or entering into derivatives contracts for 5
years, and to bar him from serving as a director and executive of securities issuing companies
and listed companies for 10 years.
In
addition, SEC has reported the case to AMLO
as this offense of unfair practice in trading securities constituted a predicate
offense under the Anti-Money Laundering Act B.E. 2542 (1999).