SINGAPORE, April 23 (NNN-Bernama) – The second witness was called today on the sixth day of the 2013 penny stock crash trial involving Malaysian businessman John Soh or Soh Chee Wen and his co-accused Quah Su-Ling.
Alex Chew, a dealer at RHB Securities Singapore Pte Ltd (formerly known as DMG & Partners Securities Pte Ltd), from 2007 to date, was questioned by Deputy Public Prosecutor Teo Guan Siew before High Court Judge Hoo Sheau Peng.
Chew will be crossed-examined by Soh’s counsel Narayanan Sreenivasan of K&L Gates Straits Law LLC and Quah’s counsel Philip Fong Yeng Fatt of Eversheds Harry Elias LLP, tomorrow.
In his conditioned statement, Chew said he was the trading representative for eight trading accounts belonging to four clients from October 19, 2011 until the accounts were closed as they were being investigated by the authorities.
One of the clients was Goh Hin Calm, a third accused person who had pleaded guilty to two of six charges of aiding and abetting Soh and Quah, on March 20, 2019.
The other three clients were Huang Phuet Mui who is Goh’s wife, James Hong Gee Ho and Edwin Sugiarto.
“During the time when I was the trading representative for these eight accounts, nearly all the trades that I carried out were instructed by “Su Ling” and “John”, rather than the clients themselves.
“The clients told me to take trading instructions from Su Ling and John, and execute trades in their accounts,” said Chew.
Chew said that as far as he was aware, none of his four clients, nor Su Ling or John, had obtained the prior consent of DMG to give him trading instructions.
According to Chew, Su Ling usually gave him instructions to trade in the shares of Asiasons Capital Ltd and LionGold Corp Ltd while John mostly gave him instructions to trade in Blumont shares.
As for any payments for losses incurred, Chew said his four clients asked him to tell Su Ling about profits and losses in their accounts as she would be the one settling the losses while John was not involved in paying for losses.
“Su Ling made payment for losses, even for orders placed by John. However, after Blumont, Asiasons and LionGold’s share prices crashed in October 2013, Su Ling told me to inform John about the losses. I tried to contact John but was unable to reach him,” said Chew.
After the crash, Chew said he read negative news reports in the newspapers about the three counters, Blumont, Asiasons and LionGold and “John Soh” was named in these reports.
“As I had been taking instructions from a person called “John”, I suspected that this may have been the same John Soh as reported in the news and became worried that I may be implicated in the case,” he said.
Both Soh and Quah pleaded not guilty to 189 and 178 charges respectively in relation to the penny stock crash.
NNN-BERNAMA
