The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has suspended the licence of Mr Tang Wai Choi, a former licensed representative of Shanxi Securities International Limited (SSIL), for seven months from 28 October 2025 to 27 May 2026 (Note 1).
As part of an investigation into a suspected ramp-and-dump scheme, the SFC found that between 10 July 2019 and 10 December 2019, Tang, unbeknownst to SSIL, had logged into a client’s securities account and placed 945 orders for the client via the internet without valid written authorisation. He also failed to maintain proper records of the order instructions from the client.
Tang’s conduct not only deprived SSIL of the ability to be reasonably certain about the identity of the person responsible for originating the order instructions for transactions in the client’s account, but also prevented SSIL from discharging its obligation to maintain a proper audit trail of the client’s instructions. In addition to exposing clients to the potential risk of unauthorised trading and licensed corporations to the risk of potential trade disputes, such kind of behaviour could also facilitate market misconduct by obscuring the true source of trades and hindering efforts to trace and monitor suspicious trading activities.
In deciding the sanction, the SFC has taken into account all relevant circumstances, including:
- the duration and frequency of Tang’s misconduct;
- the need to send a deterrent message to the industry that conduct of this nature is not acceptable; and
- Tang’s otherwise clean disciplinary record.
Note:
- Tang was licensed under the Securities and Futures Ordinance to carry on Type 1 (dealing in securities) and Type 2 (dealing in futures contracts) regulated activities and was accredited to SSIL between 20 August 2015 and 30 April 2022, and Shanxi Securities International Futures Limited between 19 December 2016 and 30 April 2022. He is currently not accredited to any licensed corporation.
A copy of the Statement of Disciplinary Action is available on the SFC website
