The British Columbia Securities Commission has handed down a $1.5 million fine and a permanent ban to the former chairman of Maple Leaf Reforestation Inc. for illegal insider trading.
The BCSC announced Monday that a commission hearing panel has permanently banned Michael Kyaw Myint Hua Hu from the province’s securities markets, and fined him $1.5 million, for engaging in illegal insider trading and making false and misleading statements to investigators.
“Hu’s deliberate decision to trade on undisclosed material information, and to conceal that trading by using the account of a third party who would not be easily connected to him, shows a calculated contempt for the integrity of securities markets,” the panel said in its sanctions decision. “His acting in any capacity in connection with our markets would pose a serious risk to those markets.”
The $1.5 million administrative penalty includes $1 million for the illegal insider trading, and $500,000 for misleading BCSC investigators and his misconduct as a whole. In addition to the fines, Hu is permanently prohibited, with limited exceptions, from purchasing securities or exchange contracts and acting as a director or officer of any issuer. He must also resign, with limited exceptions, any position he holds as a director or officer of any issuer. He is also permanently banned from becoming a registrant, investment fund manager, or promoter; he is permanently prohibited from acting in a management or consultative capacity in connection with the securities market; and he is permanently banned from investor relations activities.
In July, a BCSC panel found that Hu, while a director and chairman of Maple Leaf Reforestation, bought shares in the company while knowing undisclosed material information about a biodiesel project that the firm was negotiating in China. It also found that he made false and misleading statements to commission staff when he denied knowing the individual who held the online brokerage account used to make the purchases.