SFC bans Fund Manager for nine months
The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has announced that it has banned Kwok Chau Mo, a former fund manager of Guosen Securities (HK) Asset Management Company (GSHKAM) for nine months.
Kwok will be banned from 28 May 2020 to 27 February 2021, with the ban being enacted following an SFC investigation which found that Kwok breached the trading policies of GSHKAM when he was an employee of the firm between 10 April 2012 and 23 May 2017, according to a press release by the SFC.
During this period, Kwok concealed from his employer his beneficial interests in and/or direct control or influence over two securities trading accounts held by a friend and an acquaintance at an external brokerage firm, and his trading activities in them.
The SFC considers that Kwok’s conduct in circumventing the internal control policies of GSHKAM was dishonest and deliberate, calling into question his fitness and properness to be a licensed person.
In deciding the sanction against Kwok, the SFC says it took into account all relevant circumstances, including his remorsefulness and admission of wrongdoing, and his otherwise clean disciplinary record.
GSHKAM is said to be the first among Chinese brokerage firms and asset management companies to obtain a license from the Hong Kong SFC with no restriction terms. The company offers a variety of products to clients, such as mutual funds, private funds, hedge funds, commodity and FX funds, private equity funds and red wine investment funds, as well as customer-tailored investment services, including special managed investment accounts and investment immigration advisory.
Guosen Securities, GSHKAM’s parent company, is a Chinese state-owned financial services company. Headquartered in Shenzhen, and founded in 1989, the firm has over 70 branches and 11,500 employees across China. It established its Hong Kong subsidiary in 2008, which is currently overseen by CEO Gary Cheng.
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