Two people charged with false trading in shares of luxury car distributor

SINGAPORE: A man and his broker were charged on Monday (Nov 25) with inflating the value of the shares of a luxury car distributor in Singapore.

Wong Chow Lin @ Benjamin Wong, 61, was given one charge of false trading under the Securities and Futures Act.

His trading representative, 46-year-old Gillian Isabel Siow Siang Sok, was charged with aiding him in false trading.

Wong had allegedly traded in the shares of Eurosports Global to push up the closing price of its shares on 77 trading days between Feb 24, 2017 and Jan 12, 2018, the police said on Tuesday.

This created “a misleading appearance with respect to the price of Eurosports shares during this period”, the police added.

According to charge sheets, he bought Eurosports Global securities through two trading accounts maintained with CIMB Securities (Singapore).

The charge sheets showed that the closing prices for Eurosports Global on those 77 days were between 0.5 cents and 4 cents higher than what they would have been, if not for Wong’s intervention.

Siow is accused of assisting Wong in placing orders and executing trades in Eurosports Global securities using the two trading accounts.

According to its website, Eurosports Global is the sole authorised dealer in Singapore for Lamborghini vehicles and the exclusive distributor for Touring Superleggera cars.

A bourse filing on the Singapore Exchange (SGX) shows that it is also involved in trading and distributing watches and related accessories.

The charges against Wong and Siow arose from a referral by SGX and a joint investigation by the police’s Commercial Affairs Department and the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

If convicted, Wong and Siow may each be jailed for up to seven years, fined up to S$250,000 (US$186,000), or both.