The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has suspended Mr Singh Amit Kishan, a former employee of Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd. (Julius Baer), for seven months from 16 October 2024 to 15 May 2025 for regulatory breaches (Note 1).
The disciplinary action follows an SFC investigation which found that between 17 December 2018 and 11 February 2019, Singh, a private banker of Julius Baer, misrepresented to his then employer that he had a face-to-face meeting with a client on 10 December 2018 in Hong Kong as part of the required account opening procedure.
He also advised the client through text messaging to make 14 transactions between 21 June 2019 and 20 February 2020 in a manner which created a false appearance of unsolicited trades when that was not the case. As a matter of fact, 11 transactions involved products which were not allowed for solicitation under Julius Baer’s then applicable policies, and they would not have been allowed to proceed in the circumstances. The rest would have required pre-trade approval due to concentration risks had they been solicited, which Singh did not obtain.
All in all, Singh circumvented Julius Baer’s procedures on account opening, know-your-client (KYC) and product suitability. As a result, Julius Baer was prevented from properly monitoring staff conduct in these areas and its resulting compliance with the applicable KYC and suitability requirements under the Code of Conduct (Note 2).
In deciding the sanction against Singh, the SFC has taken into account all relevant circumstances, including:
- there is no evidence to suggest that the substantive personal information and risk profile of the client contained in the account opening documents were materially deficient or misleading or that the products traded in the 14 transactions were unsuitable for the client; and
- his otherwise clean disciplinary record.
Notes:
- Singh was a relevant individual engaged by Julius Baer in respect of Type 1 (dealing in securities) and Type 4 (advising on securities) regulated activities between 28 November 2018 and 10 June 2020. He is currently licensed by the SFC and accredited to Carret Private Capital Limited to carry on Type 1 (dealing in securities), Type 4 (advising on securities) and Type 9 (asset management) regulated activities.
- Code of Conduct for Persons Licensed by or Registered with the Securities and Futures Commission.
A copy of the Statement of Disciplinary Action is available on the SFC website
