Jul 23, 2010
Exec ordered to pay $67,500
<!-- by line --> By Jonathan Kwok
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A former senior executive of WBL Corp has been ordered to pay a civil penalty of $67,500 in the first civil lawsuit that the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has taken to court. -- PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
<!-- story content : start --> A FORMER senior executive of WBL Corp has been ordered to pay a civil penalty of $67,500 in the first civil lawsuit that the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has taken to court. The High Court had in May found that Mr Kevin Lew Chee Fai, who used to be in charge of risk management at the conglomerate, had sold WBL shares based on inside information available to him as a senior executive.
He could have been ordered to pay between $50,000 and $81,000 under the Securities and Futures Act. High Court judge Lai Siu Chiu set the penalty at $67,500 at a hearing on Thursday. On July 4, 2007, Mr Lew had sold 90,000 WBL shares at $4.98 per share, two days after attending a key senior management meeting.
There, he had learnt that forecasts showed WBL was on course to incur a net loss during the third quarter of the 2007 financial year, and was also expected to see a significant impairment for its Thai unit, Wearnes Precision (Thailand). Mr Lew had proceeded to sell his shares despite being advised by WBL's in-house counsel that the information he had received at the July 2 meeting was confidential and price sensitive, and that he should not trade in the shares.
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Read the full story in Friday's edition of the Straits Times.
