http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/opinion/scouring-accounting-footnotes-to-prevent-tunnelling

Scouring accounting footnotes to prevent tunnelling

KEE KOON BOON

933 words

19 August 2015

Business Times Singapore

Framework needed to tackle insiders’ stealing of corporate wealth.

IMAGINE that the S-chip (Singapore-listed China stocks) fraud with its “missing cash phenomenon” and the penny stock scandal never happened – because there was a way to prevent them.

While accounting information and disclosures may be abused to deceive, instead of being used to inform, there is a countermeasure if one only looks for it. For fraud perpetrators actually, if inadvertently, leave behind a trace of their accounting transgressions in the footnotes of annual reports.

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Related: (1) Scouring accounting footnotes to prevent tunnelling; (2) The trouble with non-binding takeover offers that create a false and manipulated ceiling for the target company’s shares which could be pledged or faced margin calls; There are numerous examples of where such buyouts have ended in tatters and some investors getting burnt; (3) Jade’s ex-president jailed and fined over sham takeover bid to push up its share price; (4) China Cord Blood Corp (NYSE: CO) and Golden Meditech (801 HK): Accounting Facts and Footnotes; (5) Taiwan’s MOF asks banks for details of Chinese loans to two troubled Chinese companies – Frankfurt-listed Chinese shoe company Ultrasonic AG whose executives disappeared with the loan and Golden Meditech (801 HK); TSU raises question of insider trading in Golden Meditech TDRs; FSC boss quizzed on Lien’s Golden Meditech TDRs; (6) 脐带血功效被夸大 中源协和 (Zhongyuan Union Cell & Gene: 600645 CH) 核心业务受困; 胎盘脐带血自费存储乱象; 脐带血：是生命种子，还是炒作噱头？“变了味”的脐带血; 脐带血保存，一场骗局? 血疑——上海市脐血库事件调查; Inside the Private Umbilical Cord Blood Banking Business: Wall Street Journal Analysis Found Dirty Storage, Leaky Blood Samples and Firms Going Under

Is Your Forward-Looking Statement Safe Harbor Safe?

Dykema Gossett

1560 words

17 August 2015

Mondaq Business Briefing

Federal Appeals Court Reverses Dismissal and Revives Securities Fraud Class Action

A recent federal appeals court decision has cast a shadow over the protection provided by the forward looking statement safe harbor provided by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (“PSLRA”). The ruling in In re: Harman International Industries, Inc. Securities Litigation (No. 14-7017) (D.C. Cir. June 23, 2015) reinstated a securities fraud class action lawsuit against an electronics company and three of its officers, who were charged with “knowingly and recklessly” propping up the company’s stock price with erroneous forward looking statements when the company was being considered for an acquisition that eventually fell through. The ruling should serve as a warning to public companies to be more vigilant in reviewing their safe harbor language and ensuring it is both meaningful and current. Continue reading →

BSE takes measures to plug tax evasion, money laundering

Ashwin J Punnen

16 August 2015

Financial Chronicle

The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) is putting in place a series of measures to prevent use of its exchange platform by various unscrupulous entities to evade taxes and launder money. These measures include putting additional circuit filters on stocks that are susceptible for price manipulation and reducing the number of out of the money option contracts. The exchange recently put weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly circuit filters on about 4000 stocks that are exclusively traded on the BSE and stocks listed on its SME and SME ITP platform. The exchange has also reduced the number of strikes in an option contracts available for trading from seven to three after it has found that deep out-of-money contracts were used by entities to convert black money into white. Continue reading →

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2015/08/17/2137481/doubling-your-frozen-capital-hong-kong-style/

Doubling your frozen capital, Hong Kong style

| Aug 17 08:30 | 2 comments | Share

Jennifer Hughes in Hong Kong

And then there was $29bn in frozen capital. When we last calculated the equity value of long-suspended Hong Kong stocks in July, it came to just $12bn. News from the biggest of the new entrants to the HK freezer is not exactly lifting the tone of the group, either. Last Friday, Tianhe Chemical, with $3.7bn in market cap, warned its auditor is planning to “disclaim” its opinion of the group’s delayed 2014 accounts while the auditors for Sihuan Pharmaceutical, which provided $5.9bn of the added frozen equity, did exactly that in its (also delayed) accounts, also published last week.

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http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2015/08/488_185070.html
Updated : 2015-08-18 17:53

Regulator raids accountant for allegedly using inside information

By Kim Jae-won

The financial regulator said Tuesday that its officials raided an accountant’s house, and searched his car and cell phone because he allegedly traded stocks using inside information. It is the first time in 13 years that the Financial Services Commission (FSC) exercised its authority to raid people suspected of committing financial crimes.  Continue reading →