SINGAPORE: The Court of Appeal on Friday (Oct 10) dismissed the appeals against conviction by a duo linked to Singapore's largest and most serious case of market manipulation, which wiped out S$8 billion (US$6.2 billion) from the local stock market in 2013.
Former Malaysian businessman John Soh Chee Wen and his former partner and accomplice Quah Su-Ling, had been convicted after a long-running trial of 180 and 169 charges respectively.
The pair had artificially inflated the share prices of three penny stocks, Blumont, Asiasons and LionGold, from August 2012 to October 2013, using 189 securities trading accounts.
The bulk of their charges was for deceiving financial institutions by concealing their involvement when giving instructions to make orders and trades.
Soh, who was additionally found guilty of witness tampering by asking four witnesses to lie to investigators after the stock market crash, was remanded and attended the hearing via video-link.
Quah attended the hearing in person while out on bail of S$4 million.
The scheme unravelled on Oct 4, 2013 when the share prices of the three companies crashed, erasing S$8 billion in market capitalisation from SGX.
Soh was given 36 years' jail and Quah, 20, but the pair are also appealing against their sentences at a later date.
On Friday, Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon said on behalf of the court that the appellants had failed to demonstrate any error in the trial judge's findings of fact.
He said a high threshold must be met before findings of fact will be overturned on appeal.
He said it was "wholly improper" for the counsel for Quah, Mr Sivanathan Nithyanantham, to raise baseless allegations of bias against the trial judge.
The lawyer later withdrew the allegations but again repeated them. The Chief Justice said the court must assume that he had done this on his client's instructions.
The Court of Appeal later declined to extend bail for Quah, saying it saw no basis at all for this.
While the sentence on appeal is yet to be determined, Quah is subject to the existing sentence of 20 years, said the court.
However, the court was prepared to defer Quah's commencement of sentence by one week, on the condition that her bail amount was increased to S$6 million as she was an enhanced flight risk.
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Former Malaysian businessman John Soh Chee Wen and his former partner and accomplice Quah Su-Ling, had been convicted after a long-running trial of 180 and 169 charges respectively.
The pair had artificially inflated the share prices of three penny stocks, Blumont, Asiasons and LionGold, from August 2012 to October 2013, using 189 securities trading accounts.
The bulk of their charges was for deceiving financial institutions by concealing their involvement when giving instructions to make orders and trades.
Soh, who was additionally found guilty of witness tampering by asking four witnesses to lie to investigators after the stock market crash, was remanded and attended the hearing via video-link.
Quah attended the hearing in person while out on bail of S$4 million.
The scheme unravelled on Oct 4, 2013 when the share prices of the three companies crashed, erasing S$8 billion in market capitalisation from SGX.
Soh was given 36 years' jail and Quah, 20, but the pair are also appealing against their sentences at a later date.
On Friday, Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon said on behalf of the court that the appellants had failed to demonstrate any error in the trial judge's findings of fact.
He said a high threshold must be met before findings of fact will be overturned on appeal.
He said it was "wholly improper" for the counsel for Quah, Mr Sivanathan Nithyanantham, to raise baseless allegations of bias against the trial judge.
The lawyer later withdrew the allegations but again repeated them. The Chief Justice said the court must assume that he had done this on his client's instructions.
The Court of Appeal later declined to extend bail for Quah, saying it saw no basis at all for this.
While the sentence on appeal is yet to be determined, Quah is subject to the existing sentence of 20 years, said the court.
However, the court was prepared to defer Quah's commencement of sentence by one week, on the condition that her bail amount was increased to S$6 million as she was an enhanced flight risk.
Continue reading...