In Singapore, two traders and insurance agent have been banned from securities deal making and giving financial advice because they were involved in dishonest dealings which include insider trading and forgery.
The barring orders which came from the Monetary Authority of Singapore took effect from Wednesday (May 8).
The former managing director at Jefferies Singapore (JSL), Mr. Jeremy Lee Seow Poh was banned for four years. His former colleague and former JSL senior vice-president, On Eng Keong, were given a lower barring term of two years.
Both men are no longer working at JSL and now barred from carrying out any regulated activity under the Securities and Futures Act, said the MAS on Thursday.
In a separate incident, Mr. Yap Chee Hoe, an appointed representative at Legacy FA, a financial advisory and insurance firm, was given a two-year ban. He is prohibited from being an insurance intermediary under the Insurance Act. His appointment at Legacy has also been terminated.
The men are also prohibited from providing advisory services under the Financial Advisers Act. They are not allowed to hold any management or director position or become a shareholder of any of the firms that come under the acts covered by their prohibition orders.
Both offenders in the JSL case, Mr. Lee and Mr. Ong were not allowed to trade bonds in their capacities as a result of possible conflicts with trading activities between JSL and its clients. However, they went on to commit insider training.
Also, without seeking JSI’s Knowledge and approval, Mr. Lee, who was also head of sales, traded in bonds using his private banking account between May 2011 and December 2012.
He also, with the help of Mr. Ong, traded against their own company “using privileged information which they obtained in their course of work on JSL’s fixed income desk”, said the MAS.
“JSL would not have entered into these trades if it was aware that Mr. Lee was the counter-party due to possible conflict between the personal interests of Mr. Lee and Mr. Ong, and that of JSL and its clients,” said the statement.
In 2015, JSL gave Mr. Lee a written compliance warning for improper business conduct.
In 2016, he joined Germany’s DZ bank as its director and Asia head of sales for capital market sales without declaring that he had been once subject to disciplinary proceedings when he was still at JSL.
The MAS stated that this was false due to the warning he received from JSL in 2015. DZ was misled to believe that Mr. Lee was fit to be its representative.
In the Legacy case, Mr. Yap forged the signatures of five individuals in order to expedite their purchases of the policies. He also falsified health and employment information on one of the application forms.
When Legacy discovered Mr. Yap’s misconduct, they canceled some of the applications. The other applications were withdrawn by the individuals. MAS stated that none of the individuals involved suffered any losses.