The Court of Appeal has dismissed Mr Andrew Left’s application for leave to appeal against the determination of the Market Misconduct Tribunal (MMT) on questions of fact, Hong Kong SFC just announced.
The Court of Appeal said that Left’s application was made out of time, and that, even if the application were within time, it had no reasonable prospects of success and was wholly without merit.
On 26 August 2016, the MMT found Left culpable of disclosing false and/or misleading information inducing transactions under the Securities and Futures Ordinance (SFO) by publishing a research report on Evergrande Real Estate Group Limited in June 2012.
The Court of Appeal rejected Left’s contention that there was no evidential basis for the MMT to find that Left was aware of the risk that the allegations in the research report were false or misleading as to material facts and that the risk was of such substance it was unreasonable to ignore it.
The MMT has also ordered that Mr Andrew Left be banned from trading securities in Hong Kong for the maximum period of five years, just three months ago.
It also rejected the contention that the MMT erred in finding that Left must have been aware that his analysis and logic required expertise in accountancy regulation and standards.
Left was ordered to pay the SFC’s costs.