SINGAPORE (Sept 30): The penny stock crash trial is set to resume on Sept 30, with brokers closer to the inner circle of John Soh Chee Wen and Quah Su-Ling set to take the stand. Among others, Soh’s girlfriend, Adeline Cheng Jo-Ee, and former Liongold director of business and corporate development Peter Chen Hing Woon, are up next.
Others slated to take the stand include Gabriel Gan Tze Wee, a former DMG broker, who helped Soh execute trades and is testifying as a prosecution witness.
To recap, the first tranche of the trial, which began in March this year, saw representatives from the financial institutions, as well as brokers, take the stand. They faced withering cross-examination from the defence counsels, which caused some to break down with emotion and others struggle to answer the questions posed.
The brokers were found to have lied to the Commercial Affairs Department’s investigating officers during their first interviews, before eventually coming clean about their involvement in trading in Blumont Group, Asiasons Capital (now called Attilan Group) and LionGold Corp (BAL) counters. But as the defence counsels tore into the brokers’ conditioned statements, more wrongdoing on the part of the witnesses emerged.
For instance, former OCBC Securities broker Jack Ng Kit Kiat was asked whether he was layering trade orders with another broker, Alice Ang Cheau Hoon from UOB Kay Hian. While the prosecution objected to this line of questioning, Ng admitted that he executed trade orders in Ang’s husband’s name without a third-party authorisation form.
In the upcoming round of hearings, more details about how Soh and Quah orchestrated the market around the BAL shares will emerge. Among those set to take the stand in these coming weeks is Gan, a high-profile broker who was with DMG.
Gan had produced audio recordings of conversations with Soh, where Soh offered to cover Gan’s losses from the trades. Soh later played off that offer and money as “alms” to Gan.
Another broker Ken Tai Chee Ming is also set to take the stand. Tai, who runs an outfit called AlgoCapital, had in an earlier cross-examination in a committal hearing disclosed how Soh and Quah would do margin trading. He also recounted how he limited their margins to protect them from a margin call. Tai’s involvement with the duo will also cast light on how Soh and Quah operated on razor-thin margins as they sought to drive up the share prices before any deals.
In an earlier hearing about the amendment of charges, the defence counsels had indicated that the cross-examination for the first witness would be lengthy. As more prosecution witnesses take the stand, further light will be shed on how this house of cards came tumbling down on the morning of Oct 4, 2013.
Soh and Quah are on trial for their alleged role in orchestrating the meteoric surge in the price of the three penny stock counters. When their share prices crashed in early October 2013, some $8 billion in combined market value was destroyed. Soh faces 189 charges and Quah 178 charges. They are defended by lawyers from K&L Gates Straits Law and Evershed Harry Elias respectively.
The trial has been described as the largest case of share manipulation and trading fraud in the history of the Singapore market. In the aftermath of the case, regulators had moved to tighten certain practices and processes of the securities industry.
