Two departed HSBC Holding Plc and Deutsche Bank AG currency traders will serve fifteen weeks of prison time due to executing fake trades and cheating the banks.
This Wednesday according to Justice See KeeOon, a Singapore High Court Judge, former Deutsche Bank trader Toh Hway Khuan will serve eight weeks in jail while senior Ex-HSBC dealer Ivan Chng was given more jail time with fifteen weeks. None of the two were fined.
Khuan and Chng were detained in January for utilizing their bank accounts in 2009 to attain advantageous rates on the dollar. Singapore is bolstering up on enforcing the financial industry with regulating new units to strengthen surveillance.
What drove these former currency traders in doing such crime is having an actual trading leverage and also driven by self-interests, Justice See said.
Chng and Khuan were charged in 2015; with 48 year old Chng facing 149 counts of selling and purchasing about $800 million and illegally generating about $230,000 (SGD) or $162,000 while 51 year old Toh facing 39 counts of selling and purchasing more than $250 million and illegally generating about $140 million (SGD).
Substantial losts of Khuan and Chng
Toh Hway Khuan has been jobless since 2010 due to being fired from the bank. According to Khuan’s lawyer Lee TeckYeng, the Deutsche Bank didn’t suffer actual losses and his trades did not widely affect the market, therefore urging the bank to charge a fine instead of prison sentence.
Ivan Chng, who outstrips HSBC’s annual mark of $4 million in trading profits allotted for 2008 and 2009, was also fired from the bank and worked as a driven in Uber Technologies Inc., according to his lawyer.