Tipco Foods executives fined by SEC for insider trading violation

A statement from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) confirmed the imposition of civil penalties on Tipco Foods Plc’s (TIPCO) chairwoman Laksana Supsakorn, and her colleague Sommart Dhupchinda. The two industry professionals were allegedly found guilty of jointly buying shares of a listed company using inside information.

The SEC, which has used information provided by the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) to prompt investigations, released a detailed account stating that the accused duo, a board chairwoman of Tipco Foods and Tipco Asphalt (TIPCO and TASCO), and a director of Tipco Power Co, acquired Tipco Foods shares based on confidential data in their possession.

Evidence was obtained that highlighted the chairwoman’s possession of classified information concerning TIPCO’s share price elevation due to the company’s temporary dividend in 2020 and the accumulated year’s dividend amounting to 0.69 baht per share. The derived dividend stands as the highest payment made by the company in half a decade.

Upon gathering the aforementioned insider information, Supsakorn and Sommart used the latter’s trading account to obtain shares in Tipco Foods, prior to the company’s formal disclosure of this data to the SET on February 18, 2021.

The joint buying of Tipco shares based on this privileged information, the SEC statement claims, infringes upon Section 242[1] of the Securities and Exchange Act, tying in with Section 83 of the Criminal Code. This violation, attracting penalty measures under Section 296 and 296/2 of the same Act, led the SEC’s Civil Sanction Committee to pass civil sanction penalties onto the alleged lawbreakers.

The sanction consisted of agreed civil fines, along with the requirement for the accused parties to reimburse an amount equivalent to the benefits they’ve gained from their misconduct and to cover the investigation costs incurred by SEC. Supsakorn’s fine totalled 2.49 million baht, and she is barred from holding directorial or executive positions in securities-issuing companies or securities companies for 14 months.

Sommart has been assigned an equal fine amount and a 12 month prohibition on holding directorial or executive roles. This prohibition will come into effect from the date the offender signs an agreement to comply with the civil sanctions.

If the alleged offenders deny guilt and refuse to pay the penalty, the SEC will forward a request to a public prosecutor to initiate a civil court case, to impose the maximum legal civil sanctions, surpassing the standard civil sanction penalty.

According to the regulator, the civil penalties and the reimbursement from benefits acquired from the offences will find their way to the Finance Ministry.

With news of the insider trading case against Supsakorn reaching Tipco, the company’s chief executive, Prasit Akkaranunkorranich, affirmed the company’s awareness of the situation in a declaration to the SET yesterday. Putting all speculation to rest, he assured the SET that the issue would not influence the company’s business operations and pledged to keep the stock exchange informed about any developments in the case.