http://www.thestar.com.my/Business/Business-News/2015/03/21/Investigative-audits-common-among-listed-companies/?style=biz

Investigative audits common among listed companies

Saturday, 21 March 2015

MALAYSIA has seen only small-scale forensic accounting cases, mostly in the form of investigation audits done on Practice Note 17 companies, which has surged since 2000. So, the call on the Auditor-General to undertake a forensic audit on the government-owned fund –1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) will be the largest by far in Malaysia’s corporate history.

According to Ferrier Hodgson MH director of forensic and investigations Liew Kim Yuen, the only investigation in corporate history that could be compared with 1MDB’s scale is the Bumiputra Malaysia Finance (BMF) scandal in 1983. Continue reading →

http://www.thestar.com.my/Business/Business-News/2015/03/21/Auditing-the-AuditorGeneral/?style=biz

Auditing the Auditor-General

Saturday, 21 March 2015

BY: WONG WEI-SHEN

Is the Public Accounts Committee equipped to assess the work of Ambrin who has been tasked with verifying the books of 1MDB from 2009?

FORENSIC auditing has never been so widely discussed as in the last two weeks. And neither has the Auditor-General Tan Sri Ambrin Buang (pic) received so much attention.

It started when Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak instructed Ambrin to “independently verify 1Malaysia Development Bhd’s (1MDB) accounts during a Cabinet meeting on March 4. Politicians from both sides of the political divide as well as observers propagated that the Auditor-General should undertake a forensic audit of 1MDB’s books to get to the bottom of its business transactions and find out why the six-year government fund is facing cashflow problems. Continue reading →

http://www.wsj.com/articles/young-financiers-insurance-empire-collapses-1426881926

Young Financier’s Insurance Empire Collapses

Investments of insurance companies owned by Southport Lane Management were swapped for unusual and sometimes worthless assets

MARK MAREMONT and LESLIE SCISM

Updated March 20, 2015 5:51 p.m. ET

Alexander Chatfield Burns cut a dashing figure in young New York financial circles. Still in his mid-20s, he controlled a private-equity firm that owned several insurance companies. He called late-night meetings at a penthouse cigar club and donated the wine for a Guggenheim museum event from a vineyard he later bought. Then one day about a year ago, Mr. Burns checked into a mental-health ward at New York’s Bellevue Hospital, leaving behind an affidavit describing an unusual series of asset transfers. Soon after, he resigned from his company, Southport Lane Management LLC. Now, insurance investigators are sifting through the rubble. Delaware regulators say Southport under Mr. Burns siphoned off millions of dollars of mainstream insurance holdings, replacing them with assets that were “illiquid, grossly over-valued or hard to value, worthless, and in some cases non-existent,” as the state’s insurance commissioner put it in a filing in Delaware Chancery Court. Continue reading →

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-20/china-tells-internet-firm-ex-boss-come-home-to-fix-debt

China Tells Internet Firm Ex-Boss Come Home to Fix Debt

byBloomberg News

March 20, 2015

(Bloomberg) — China told an Internet company to urge its former chief, under investigation for alleged securities rules violations, back to the country as it seeks to avert a second corporate default in the onshore bond market. Continue reading →

http://english.caixin.com/2014-09-11/100727437.html

9.11.2014 14:40

Media Outlet Blackmailed over 100 Companies, Xinhua Reports

Two top editors at 21cbh.com admit targeting firms preparing to go public, collecting fees for positive stories and punishing those who would not pay with scathing reports

By staff reporter Wang Yuqian

Investigators have identified more than 100 companies allegedly extorted by a well-known financial news outlet, Xinhua reports, and one editor said his superiors wanted him to sign ad agreements with nearly three-quarters of IPO hopefuls every year. Continue reading →

http://news.asiaone.com/print/news/asia/sri-lanka-pm-seeks-probe-stock-markets-insider-trading

Sri Lanka PM seeks probe into stock market’s insider trading

Thursday, March 19, 2015 – 18:25

Saman Indrajith

The Island/Asia News Network

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has submitted a motion to Secretary General of Parliament seeking the appointment of a Parliamentary Select Committee to investigate whether insider trading and other malpractices have taken place at the Stock Market since 2010. Continue reading →

http://www.thestar.com.my/Business/Business-News/2015/03/19/Bursa-Securities-raps-fines-remisier-RM312000-for-manipulation/?style=biz

Bursa Securities raps, fines remisier RM312,000 for manipulation

Thursday, 19 March 2015

KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia Securities Bhd has reprimanded and fined a remisier Tan Kai Kiat RM312,000 for manipulative dealing activities in numerous counters/securities. It had on Thursday ordered to strike off Tan, if he was still a registered person of Bursa Malaysia Securities. Bursa Securities said he had manipulated in  the call warrants of Oriental Holdings Bhd, Genting Plantations Bhd, PPB Group Bhd and IJM Plantations Bhd. He was also involved in manipulating the loan rights of Land & General Bhd and also in the shares of Integrated Rubber Corporation Bhd (IRCB);  Narra Industries Bhd, CIMB Group Holdings Bhd (CIMB) and its call warrants. Other counters were the shares and call warrants of DRB-Hicom Bhd, Malaysian Bulk Carriers Bhd and UEM Sunrise Bhd. Bursa Securities said Tan was then a dealer’s representative of HwangDBS Investment Bank Bhd in Penang. Continue reading →

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/ex-remisier-penalised-s/1726840.html

Posted by Joel CHUA Yong Sheng, Year 3 undergrad at the School of Business, Singapore Management University

Ex-remisier penalised S$157,000 for false trading

POSTED: 19 Mar 2015 16:57
Former UOB Kay Hian remisier Tan Hua Ann is not allowed to conduct business in any regulated activity under the Securities and Futures Act, among other prohibitions, for two years after making S$62,723 through false trading. Continue reading →

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-19/how-an-ex-moore-trader-got-caught-in-the-most-complicated-insider-trading-investigation-in-british-history

How an Ex-Moore Trader Got Caught in the Most Complicated Insider Trading Investigation in British History

bySuzi Ring

March 20, 2015

Julian Rifat, a former Moore Capital trader once named in a list of “Institutional Investors That Matter,” was sentenced to 19 months in jail by a London judge for insider trading. British authorities swept through the darkened streets of Oxford that Tuesday toward their appointment with a most wanted man. The quarry in this pre-dawn hunt was, of all things, a hedge-fund trader. His name was Julian Rifat, and he was a principal target of Operation Tabernula — the biggest, most complex insider-trading investigation in British history.  Continue reading →

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-17/sec-will-develop-fiduciary-duty-rule-for-brokers-white-says

SEC Joins Battle on Broker Bias That Could Remake Industry

byDave Michaels

March 17, 2015

(Bloomberg) — The head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission called for tighter rules on brokers, echoing the White House’s campaign to crack down on what the government calls biased financial advice that is costing investors billions of dollars. Continue reading →