The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday meted out penalties and fines to four fund houses and managers for irregularly handling assets under their management.
The punishments came after the financial regulator launched an industry-wide probe after fund managers at the local asset management unit of Dutch financial services provider ING Securities Investment and Trust Co (安泰投信) and other companies were suspected of manipulating share prices while managing government-owned funds.
The commission fined Capital Trust Investment Corp (群益投信) NT$1.2 million (US$41,197), banned it from new business applications for three months, and from undertaking new fund distribution and blanket fund management operations for six month.
“Capital Trust failed to cooperate with regulations and punish a former fund manager, surnamed Tsai (蔡), who engaged in stock investment activities via dummy accounts that violated securities transaction rules,” the commission said.
The commission also fined Union Securities Investment Trust Corp (聯邦投信) NT$600,000 for similar negligence and forced the firm to suspend a fund manager surnamed Ho (何) for one year.
In addition, the financial regulator made Mirae Asset Global Taiwan (未來資產) and SinoPac Securities Investment Trust Co (永豐投信) suspend fund managers surnamed Cheng (鄭) and Chang (張) for three months and one month respectively, because they or their spouses invested in stocks linked to funds that they manage.
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