The former chief executive of collapsed offshore vessel operator Swiber Holdings has been fined SGD 310,000 ($230,000) over false contract claims and insider trading.
Yeo Chee Neng has been convicted of four counts of offences under the Securities and Futures Act, according to a police statement.
The penalties included a SGD 200,000 fine for getting his wife to sell their joint holdings in Swiber debentures while in possession of non-public and material information relating to Swiber’s financial difficulties.
A further SGD 100,000 fine was imposed for his “neglect in connection with Swiber’s false statement relating to a $710m project award”.
A SGD 5,000 fine was also imposed for each of the two counts of failing to disclose changes in his interest in Swiber debentures.
The charges followed a joint investigation conducted by the Commercial Affairs Department of the Singapore Police Force and the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
On the insider trading charges, authorities said investigations revealed that Swiber was due to redeem debentures worth SGD 305m in June, July and October 2016 and was negotiating with third parties to raise funds to fulfil the redemptions, among other operating and financial commitments.
“Yeo believed that if these fundraising exercises failed, Swiber would go into default. He had also directly communicated information relating to Swiber’s financial situation to his wife on multiple occasions,” the Singapore police said.
“By 29 June 2016, Yeo knew that Swiber had not secured such funds and this information would reasonably be expected to have a material effect on Swiber’s securities.
“While in possession of this information, Yeo instructed his wife to sell Swiber debentures that were held in their joint account,” the police added.
Yeo’s wife is said to have placed an order on 29 June 2016 to sell Swiber debentures with a face value of SGD 500,000 and eventually liquidated half of this position on 5 July 2016.
On 27 July 2016, Swiber filed to wind up the company. Two days later, the winding-up application was withdrawn and Swiber was placed under interim judicial management instead. Thereafter, Swiber defaulted on the outstanding debentures. Yeo avoided losses of SGD 629,762 as a result of his insider knowledge.
The Singapore police said the charge related to the false statement concerning Swiber’s SGX announcement in December 2014 stating that it had secured a $710m offshore project in West Africa.
However, investigations revealed that at the time Swiber had only entered into a letter of intent for the work and was only authorised to spend up to $2m to carry out a subset of the work.
“Yeo, then a non-executive director of Swiber, admitted that he approved Swiber’s announcement despite knowing the LoI and its terms, which a reasonable person in his position ought reasonably to have known was false in a material particular,” the police said.
Separately, seven other former directors of Swiber have each been convicted on one count of neglect in connection to Swiber’s false announcement on the West African Project.
The executives were named as Raymond Goh, Francis Wong Chin Sing, Leonard Tay Gim Sin, Nitish Gupta, Jean Pers, Oon Thian Seng and Chia Fook Eng.
They were sentenced to fines ranging from SGD10,000 to SGD100,000, with punishments handed out earlier this year, authorities confirmed.
All of them were also disqualified from being a director of any company or directly or indirectly taking part in the management of any company for five years.
