Hong Kong’s graft watchdog is probing a major fraudulent trading case after arresting 11 people, including two senior executives at Deutsche Bank, reports said yesterday.
The duo were detained after the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) launched an operation on Tuesday following a corruption complaint.
“The two have been arrested but no charges have been made, and Deutsche Bank is helping the ICAC with its inquiries,” Dow Jones Newswires reported, quoting a person familiar with the case.
The two are suspected of conspiring to accept payment from an investor and others for quoting favorable prices to them in their trading of the bank’s derivative warrants.
Local media have reported that the ICAC is investigating staff at Deutsche Bank, and said the profits made by those involved in the case amounted to HK$10 million (US$1.3 million).
The bank denied any irregularities in trading and refused to confirm the involvement of its employees.
“Deutsche Bank’s Hong Kong warrant business is operating normally and we are fully committed to meeting client market requirements,” said Michael West, a spokesman from the Hong Kong branch of the German banking giant told.
“There has been no suggestion of any misconduct by Deutsche Bank. We don’t comment on bank employees as a matter of policy,” he said.
The ICAC said the suspects arrested in “Operation Leap Over” include two licensed representatives of a securities firm, a stock investor and six others.
They are also being probed for conspiring to defraud the bank and the public “by creating a false or misleading appearance of active trading in the derivative warrants issued by the bank,” the commission said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last