An Australian court jailed a former boss of a scandal-hit Chinese mining firm yesterday for eight years over insider trading, in a major insider trading prosecution for the country.
Former Hanlong Group (漢龍集團) managing director Steven Hui Xiao (肖輝) pleaded guilty last year after he was extradited from Hong Kong to Australia, from where he fled while on bail, in 2014.
The three charges included one involving 102 illegal trades relating to planned investments in Australian-listed companies, Sundance Resources Ltd and Bannerman Resources Ltd, when Xiao was at Hanlong.
Former Hanlong vice president Calvin Zhu (朱博施) was in 2013 sentenced to more than two years in prison as part of Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s (ASIC) investigation into the insider-trading allegations.
Xiao’s sentence demonstrated the seriousness of insider trading, ASIC commissioner Cathie Armour told reporters in Sydney yesterday.
“Maintaining confidence in the integrity of our financial markets is vital for everyone.... My message to anyone considering insider trading is this: ‘ASIC will find you,’” Armour said. “We will find insider traders and we will prosecute them.”
Armour said the overall value of the trades was about A$2.3 million (US$1.7 million), with a profit of A$1.7 million.
Hanlong, based in China’s southwestern province of Sichuan, launched a takeover bid of A$1.3 billion for listed Australian iron ore firm Sundance in 2011. The deal collapsed in 2013 after the Chinese firm failed to follow through.
Former Hanlong chairman Liu Han (劉漢) was executed in China last year for “organizing and leading a mafia-style group,” murder and other crimes.
Xiao was sentenced to eight years and three months behind bars in the New South Wales Supreme Court, commencing Jan. 12, 2014.
A non-parole period of five years and six months means he will be eligible for release from July 11, 2019, at the earliest.
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