16 minutes
PETALING JAYA: Bursa Malaysia Securities has publicly reprimanded Bertam Alliance Bhd and five of its directors for breaches of the Bursa Malaysia Securities Main Market Listing Requirements (Main LR).
Additonally, the directors were fined a total of RM225,000.
Bursa found that Bertam Alliance had breached paragraph 9.19(19)(a)(ii) of the Main LR for failing to make an immediate announcement of the winding-up order dated Nov 30, 2017 against its subsidiary, Bertam Development Sdn Bhd (BDSB).
Along with that, it was found to have breached paragraph 8.04(3)(b) of the Main LR read together with paragraph 4.1(a) of Practice Note 17 (PN17) for failing to make the first announcement on an immediate basis upon the winding-up of BDSB.
Bertam had only on Dec 11, 2017 announced that the High Court had refused to set aside the winding-up petition and allowed the winding-up and on Dec 22, 2017 announced the detailed contents of the winding-up order. Furthermore, the winding up order had triggered the prescribed criteria in paragraph 2.1(c) of PN17 as BDSB was a major subsidiary and the total assets of BDSB represented 82% of Bertam Group’s total assets as at Sept 30, 2017.
However, Bertam only made the first announcement on April 4, 2018.
The five directors who were fined are: executive director Lim Nyuk Foh, executive director Chiew Boon Chin, audit commitee member and senior independent non-executive chairman Datuk Mohamed Arsad Sehan, audit committee chairman and independent non-executive director Lim Shaw Keong @ Alfred Lim as well as audit committee member and non independent non-executive director Koo Jenn Man.
“The finding of breach and imposition of the above penalties on Bertam and its directors were made pursuant to paragraph 16.19 of the Main LR upon completion of due process and after taking into consideration all facts and circumstances of the matter including the materiality of the breaches, impact of the breaches to Bertam and shareholders/investors and the roles, responsibilities, knowledge and conduct of the directors,” Bursa said in a statement.
In a separate statement, Bursa Malaysia Securities said it has publicly reprimanded and imposed a fine of RM28,500 on Mohd Ikmal Zulkifli, and ordered him to be struck off its register for misconducts/breaches involving personal/unauthorised trades in the accounts of two clients.
At the time, Ikmal was a commissioned dealer’s representative of RHB Investment Bank Bhd at its Pandan Indah branch office, and had violated several rules including misusing Client A’s account to carry out his own trading activities of share speculation on numerous trading days as well as over a period of two months, misused Client B’s account to carry out trades based on his own discretion without Client B’s knowledge and consent and the shares were then force sold.
These trades had resulted in losses in the clients’ accounts which were disputed by the clients.
Ikmal also wrongfully applied/used monies/sales proceeds/contra gains in Client B’s trust account to settle his unauthorised purchases or to off-set fully or partially against the contra losses incurred arising from his contra trading.
Bursa said as an experienced registered person, he knew or ought to know that he should not use or initiate any arrangement to use any client’s account for his personal trades and to share the profits with the client.
“Hence, the client’s purported agreement/consent to the arrangement would not absolve Ikmal from the breaches. Ikmal’s misconducts had clearly undermined investor protection, particularly protection of clients’ accounts and monies which is one of the fundamental obligations of a dealer’s representative (DR)and must be upheld at all times,” it said.
It added that the public reprimand was imposed on Ikmal as a deterrent consideration so as to create market awareness and reinforce the serious view taken by Bursa Malaysia Securities for cases involving abuse/misuse of clients’ accounts/monies by DRs.
