The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) announced that it has banned Mr Poon Chun Hing from re-entering the industry for 30 months from 18 July 2018 to 17 January 2021.
The disciplinary action follows an SFC investigation which found that in July 2015, Poon offered to invest for a friend, and agreed not only to bear any losses that might result from her investment but also to distribute to her investment return on a monthly basis. She accepted Poon’s offer and went on to deposit $50,000 into his account according to their agreement.
About a year later, when she approached Poon to retrieve her original investment and the return, she was told that he had entered into some binding options contracts which had to remain open until their expiry date as early termination would lead to significant losses. Poon later admitted that the options contracts were fictitious; he made them up because he wanted to delay the payment to his friend. Poon eventually repaid her the original investment and the return after the SFC commenced an investigation into the matter.
During the investigation, Poon initially lied to the SFC that he conducted all securities and futures transactions through his account at Phillip Securities (Hong Kong) Limited, but he later admitted that the transactions were in fact conducted through another corporation which was neither licensed nor registered with the SFC.
The SFC considers that Poon’s conduct calls into question his fitness and properness to be a licensed person.
In deciding the sanction, the SFC took into account that Poon’s conduct was intentional and seriously dishonest.