SHAH ALAM (May 14, 2007): Businessman Datuk Soh Chee Wen was today fined a total of RM6 million by a sessions court here after he pleaded guilty to two alternative charges of abetting Datuk Tony Tiah Thee Kian in submitting false information to the then Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE).

The conviction automatically disqualifies Soh from acting as a director of a company under Section 130 of the Companies Act 1965 for five years.

For each charge of submitting false information to the KLSE (now Bursa Malaysia), judge Azimah Omar sentenced Soh to the maximum fine of RM3 million, in default 30 months jail.

Soh’s counsel Ng Aik Guan applied for the fine to be paid in three instalments within six months.

However, Azimah rejected it and ordered Soh to pay RM2 million of the fine today with the balance RM4 million to be paid within the next two months.

The bail sum of RM2 million and Soh’s passport were also ordered to be retained by the court until the fine was fully settled.

According to a Securities Commission statement, the false reporting was over the transaction involving 7.75 million Omega Holdings Bhd (OHB) shares and 7.75 million OHB-A share.

The prosecution adduced facts which showed that between September and October 1997, Tiah and Soh had agreed to transact the said shares at RM6.45.

However, TA Securities Sdn Bhd had reported these transactions to be at RM11.60 and RM9.55 per share respectively, involving only 4.31 million OHB shares and 5.23 million OHB-A shares.

Soh was charged on May 14, 2002, with two charges for using a scheme to defraud Omega Securities Sdn Bhd under Section 87A(a) of the Securities Industry Act 1983 (SIA) through off-market transactions in respect of the sale of Uniphoenix Corporation Bhd shares.

In September 2005, he was also charged with three alternative charges of furnishing false reports involving OHB shares to the then KLSE.

These three alternative charges were for abetting Tiah to submit false information to the KLSE under Section 122B(a) of the SIA read together with Section 122C© of the SIA.

Soh also admitted to the second principal charge of securities fraud under Section 87A SIA in relation to the execution of contango transactions in the margin accounts of Omega Securities.

This was taken into consideration by the sessions court in sentencing.

On May 10, 2002, Tiah had pleaded guilty and was convicted of furnishing a false report to the KLSE involving direct business transactions involving 28 million OHB shares and 7 million OHB-A shares.

Tiah was convicted and fined RM3 million.