Singapore, 22 March 2017…Mr Tey Thean Yang Dennis (Tey) was today sentenced to a total of 16 weeks’ imprisonment as a result of a conviction arising from a joint investigation conducted by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Commercial Affairs Department of the Singapore Police Force. The State Courts convicted Mr Tey of offences involving the employment of a device or scheme to defraud two Contracts for Differences (CFD)1 providers, IG Asia Pte Ltd (IG Asia) and CMC Markets Singapore Pte Ltd (CMC Markets).
2 Between 24 October 2012 and 8 January 2013, while working as a remisier with DBS Vickers Securities (Singapore) Pte Ltd, Tey transacted in CFDs where the underlying securities were listed on the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited. The CFDs were offered by IG Asia and CMC Markets.
3 Tey knew that the CFDs were generally priced on a real-time basis to the live prices of the underlying securities. Tey employed a strategy known as “spoofing”, which involved entering false orders in the underlying securities, in order to temporarily change the prices of the securities and thereby the prices of the corresponding CFDs. He then executed the CFD trades at prices which were beneficial to him but were detrimental to the two CFD providers. After executing the CFD trades, Tey removed the false orders for the underlying securities. Tey used different trading accounts to enter the false orders in the underlying securities and to execute the CFD trades, and made a total profit of $30,239.
3 On 22 July 2016, Tey was charged in the State Courts of Singapore with 23 charges under section 201(a) and (b) of the Securities and Futures Act (SFA). On 10 March 2017, Tey pleaded guilty to eight of these charges and agreed to have the remaining 15 charges taken into account by the court in sentencing.
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Notes to Editor
(A) Section 201(a) of the SFA
Under section 201(a) of the SFA, no person shall, directly or indirectly, in connection with the subscription, purchase or sale of any securities, employ any device, scheme or artifice to defraud.”
(B) Section 201(b) of the SFA
Under section 201(b) of the SFA, no person shall, directly or indirectly, in connection with the subscription, purchase or sale of any securities engage in any act, practice or course of business which operates as a fraud or deception, or is likely to operate as a fraud or deception, upon any person.
(C) Section 204(1) of the SFA
Under Section 204(1) of the SFA, any person who contravenes any of the provisions that prohibit market misconduct, including section 201, shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $250,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years or to both.