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The District Court today sentenced the chairman of VST Holdings Limited (VST), Mr Li Jialin, to six months of imprisonment for price rigging in VST shares and fined him $240,000 for failing to disclose his interest in shares of VST as required by the Securities and Futures Ordinance (SFO).
This is the first time a listed company chairman has been convicted of market manipulation offence since the SFO came into effect on 1 April 2003.
Li was also disqualified from being a director of a listed company for one year. As a result, Li will have to relinquish his positions as the chairman and a director of VST.
Li was convicted on 22 October 2012 of 10 counts of price rigging and 16 counts of failing to disclose his interest in shares of VST following an eight-day trial before the Honourable Judge Douglas Yau. Judge Yau today ordered Li to serve his prison sentence for each of the 10 price rigging charges concurrently.
Li was ordered to pay investigation costs $168,282 to the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC).
Note:
- Li was charged under section 296 and section 341 of the SFO. Please see SFC’s press releases dated30 September 2010, 25 November 2010, 14 December 2010, 15 September 2011 and 22 October 2012.
