http://www.todayonline.com/Hotnews/EDC120728-0000031/Spore-traders-in-insider-trading-probe
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said the federal court in Manhattan had frozen assets worth over US$38 million belonging to Hong Kong-based Well Advantage, controlled by businessman Zhang Zhirong, and other unnamed traders who used accounts in Hong Kong and Singapore to trade in Nexen stock.
They made trading profits of US$7 million and US$6 million respectively by using inside knowledge of the merger to buy Nexen shares before the announcement, the SEC says.
The trading was suspicious, the SEC claims in its complaint, because the accounts used to buy the shares had "either no history or extremely limited history" of buying Nexen shares before July 2012.
The unnamed Singapore traders used accounts in the names of Phillip Securities and Citibank, while Well Advantage made its trades through accounts held at UBS Securities and Citigroup Global Markets.
Neither of the Well Advantage accounts had traded Nexen shares since January 2012, and the Citigroup account had been completely dormant for over six months.
A spokeswoman for CNOOC declined to comment. Calls to Well Advantage's office in Hong Kong were not answered on Saturday.
Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission also declined comment while officials at the Monetary Authority of Singapore were not immediately available.
The SEC does not allege any wrongdoing by Zhang, but notes that he is the controlling shareholder of a company that engages in significant business activities with CNOOC.
The SEC is cracking down on insider trading, it says, having brought 57 insider trading actions in the financial year 2011 against 124 individuals and entities, a nearly 8 per cent increase in the number of filed actions from the prior fiscal year.
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