Supermax ED vacates office after fine, jail term

The Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court yesterday convicted Cheryl(file pic) and her sister for insider trading offences committed in October 2007, the Securities Commission said in a statement.

KUALA LUMPUR: Supermax Corp Bhd said group executive director Datin Seri Cheryl Tan Bee Geok has vacated her office after she was fined RM7mil and sentenced to a five-year jail term for insider trading offences.

The company, in a statement today, said a succession plan is in place and it is business as usual in Supermax.

“The position of the business remains intact and the management stands strong in growing the business going forward,” it said in statement today.

The Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court yesterday convicted Cheryl and her sister for insider trading offences committed in October 2007, the Securities Commission said in a statement.

The court has granted a stay of execution pending appeal against the conviction and sentence.

Cheryl’s sister Tan Bee Hong was convicted of insider trading as she was found to have disposed of 350,000 APLI shares while in possession of material non-public information.

Cheryl, who was an executive director of APL Industries Bhd in charge of finance then, was convicted of communicating the said non-public information to her between Oct 23, 2007 and Oct 31, 2007.

She had tipped her sister on the audit adjustments proposed by APLI’s auditors, which resulted in APLI reporting a higher loss for the financial year ended June 30, 2007 compared to the previously reported unaudited fourth quarter for the same financial year. The audit adjustments led to APLI being classified as a Practice Note 17 (PN17) company.

APLI made announcements to Bursa Malaysia about the audit adjustments and its classification as a PN17 company on Oct 31, 2007. The sisters were tried together in a full trial, where 13 witnesses testified for the prosecution and four witnesses for the defence.

In another case, the High Court yesterday dismissed an application by Datuk Seri Stanley Thai Kim Sim – Cheryl’s husband – to be reappointed as a director of Supermax.

The application was sought by Thai after he was disqualified as a director of Supermax following his conviction of an insider trading offence in November 2017.