Hefty fines for AP Oil directors

Two directors of listed oil and lubricants trader AP Oil International were fined for offenses under Singapore’s Securities and Futures Act. Chairman and Managing Director Ho Leng Woon, 61, was fined US$150,000 for releasing a misleading announcement to the Singapore Exchange (SGX) in November 2004. The statement was about iron ore sales and purchase agreements with a Thai company and the corresponding sale of iron ore to a China-based company. Ang Luck Seh, also 61, then an executive director, was fined US$80,000 for insider trading relating to the purchase of 85,000 AP Oil shares, then amounting to about US$26,000, on October 5 that year. A district court heard that Ang signed two iron ore trading contracts potentially worth a total of more than US$700 million on AP Oil’s behalf in September 2004, but this was not disclosed immediately to SGX. (November 18, 2009)