TWO former senior employees of UOB Kay Hian Private Limited (UOBKH) were charged on Wednesday for allegedly lying to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in relation to reports on a then Catalist aspirant. Lan Kang Ming, 38, and Wee Toon Lee, 34, each face three charges of providing MAS with false information in October 2018 in relation to due diligence reports on an unidentified company applying to list on the Catalist board of the Singapore Exchange. MAS said in a media statement on Wednesday that it was performing an onsite inspection of UOBKH between June and August 2018, to assess the latter's controls, policies and procedures in relation to its role as an issue manager for Initial Public Offering (IPOs). During the examination, Lan and Wee were said to have provided different versions of a due diligence report relating to background checks on a company applying to be listed on the Catalist board of the Singapore Exchange. UOBKH had acted as the issue manager
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CSRC has signed 48 MOUs with overseas regulators
By LYNETTE KHOO
12 July 2011
There is a greater need to strengthen cross-border cooperation in the supervision of Chinese companies in the wake of accounting scandals in overseas Chinese listings, a senior official from China’s securities regulator said yesterday.
‘We welcome any regulators who want to discuss with us cooperation in regulatory supervision,’ Liu Qingsong, deputy director at the research centre of China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) told BT at the sidelines of a panel discussion at FutureChina Global Forum.
While CSRC has signed 48 memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with regulators so far, Mr. Liu noted that these pacts are ‘necessary but not sufficient’. Details of actual cooperation need to be worked out, and the current level of cooperation is not enough, he said.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is already among the list of overseas regulators that have signed an MOU with CSRC on cooperation in the regulation of securities and futures activities.
Mr. Liu conceded at the panel discussion that scandals involving Chinese companies ‘are very damaging to the reputation of all Chinese companies’. But he stressed that many of those companies involved are registered outside China.
He also pointed out that it is unfair to blame Chinese regulators as overseas regulators do not have to seek China’s consensus when they approve those companies to list on their exchanges.
‘Overseas regulators should rethink the processes they follow too, then we may have better cooperation on the regulation of these overseas listings of the companies,’ he said.
Since 2006, Chinese companies need to obtain approval from CSRC before they can list offshore.
US regulatory representatives are meeting officials from China’s ministry of finance and CSRC this week to discuss how best to oversee the auditing of Chinese companies that are listed on the US stock markets.
But Simon Gleave, partner at KPMG China, questioned if getting American regulators to inspect the audits of Chinese companies would be effective, given the language barrier.
‘I don’t know many American regulators who speak Chinese, so how they’re going to look at the books of Chinese companies, I have no idea,’ he said at the same panel yesterday.
Mr. Gleave noted that the accounting fallout at some Chinese listings will dampen the interest of overseas investors to invest in Chinese companies. He believes that the bigger challenge lies in beefing up corporate governance in non-state owned enterprises.
Also speaking at the discussion yesterday, Standard Chartered China CEO Lim Cheng Teck touched on the need for China to reform its financial market, particularly in deepening and widening its illiquid bond market.
Besides the bond market, other imbalances still exist in China’s capital markets, such as in the development of exchange and off-exchange markets, and the under-development of over-the-counter (OTC) market, Mr. Liu said. There is hence a need to spur direct financing for companies, accelerate the development of the OTC market, and improve the competition and innovation capability of financial intermediaries.
China is also exploring an international listing board for companies registered overseas and for their capital raised in yuan to be used directly or converted into foreign currencies, Mr. Liu said. The exact timeline for this new board has not been set.