SC: No basis for further action over E&O, AirAsia

From the Business Times comes the below article. Conclusions: No action in the trading of the shares of E&O or AirAsia, still investigating MAS shares.

Enforcement on possible insider trading is quite poor in Malaysia, although there are many suspected cases, not only regarding penny stocks or speculative counters, but also regarding "blue chips". One of the worst recent cases is the possible insider trading of Proton shares, prior to the announcement of a General Offer by DRB-Hicom.

http://www.btimes.com.my/Current_News/BTIMES/articles/masit/Article/index_html

The Securities Commission (SC) says it has found no basis for further action in its probes into the trading of shares of Eastern & Oriental Bhd (E&O) and AirAsia Bhd prior to the listed firms' respective deals.
The SC had set up an independent committee consisting of two senior independent commission members to supervise the review in the case of E&O.

"After investigating the matter, including obtaining the opinion of two industry experts to determine the materiality of the information on E&O's share price, the SC found that there is no basis to take further action on the matter," said an SC spokesman in response to queries from Business Times yesterday.

The SC also said that it had conducted a review on the trading of shares in the run-up to the announcement of the Malaysia Airlines-AirAsia share swap and collaboration agreement on August 9 2011, and of Sime Darby's 30 per cent purchase of E&O on August 29 2011.

On the MAS-AirAsia deal, the SC said it conducted a review on both the companies' share transactions. It said it engaged a market expert to provide independent expert opinion.
"Based on the SC review and the opinion of the market expert, the SC found no basis to take further action on the AirAsia share transactions," it said.

"The SC has, however, commenced investigation into possible insider dealing of MAS shares during the relevant period," it said.

It gave no further details.