HK INSIDER TRADER JAILED FOR SEVEN YEARS

       A Hong Kong court on Friday sentenced a former senior banker at Morgan Stanley to seven years in jail-the heaviest punishment it can impose - in the city's largest insider dealing case.
       Du Jun was convicted on 10 charges for buying 87 million Hong Kong dollars (Bt379 million)worth of shares in Citic Resources when he was advising the firm on oil-field acquisitions in Kazakhstan and northeastern China.
       He made a profit of more than $30 million from selling some of the shares in 2007, after the announcement of the acquisitions sent the share value up.
       In sentencing, District Court Judge Andrew Chan said: "The scale was unprecedented. This case is the biggest I have come across so far."
       The judge said Du was motivated by "sheer greed" and had "seriously undermined the integrity of the financial markets."
       He noted that the 41-year-old had been warned twice by his superior against trading the shares, but he refused to listen to the advice.
       Judge Chan sentenced Du to seven years and three months and imposed a fine of $23.32 million.
       But the prison term had to be reduced to seven years as it was the maximum penalty the District Court can impose.
       The judge also ordered that Du be prevented from dealing in secutiries and taking up directorship positions in listed companies for a period of five years.
       The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), the city's financial regulator, hailed the outcome of the case as the biggest deterrent against market misconduct crimes.
       "The sentence is the strongest possible message to anyone tempted to commit insider dealing offences in the future," Mark Steward, the regulator's head of enforcement, said outside court.
       David Webb, a shareholders activist and a former non-executive director of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, said he expected the SFC to bring forward more insider dealing prosecutions in the near future.
       "To build an effective deterrent against insider dealing, you need a track record of successful prosecutions," he said.
       The conviction was thenth secured by the SFC on insider dealing since July last year and the fourth that resulted in jail terms.

       The judge said Du was motivated by sheer greed and had seriously undermined the integrity of the financial markets.