Appellate court reverses acquittal of ex-MMM deputy chairman for insider trading

KUALA LUMPUR (May 6): The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) said that the Court of Appeal has allowed its appeal against the acquittal of former Malaysian Merchant Marine Bhd (MMM) executive deputy chairman Datuk Ramesh Rajaratnam for insider trading offences.

This decision reversed the ruling made by the High Court in May 2021, which had granted Ramesh’s appeal and nullified the conviction and sentence imposed by the Sessions Court on all three charges against him.

“The Court of Appeal accordingly set aside the High Court’s decision in acquitting Ramesh on the first charge and reinstated the earlier conviction and sentence imposed by the Sessions Court,” the SC said in a statement.

“The Court of Appeal further directed that the case be remitted to the High Court and to be heard on the merits before another High Court judge,” it said.

Judges Datuk Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera, Datuk Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim and Datuk Wong Kian Kheong ruled that the High Court had erred in acquitting Ramesh without considering the case’s merits, the statement said.

In delivering the court’s judgment, Wong emphasised the appellate court’s responsibility to assess the appeal’s merits thoroughly after the trial and during the appeal itself.

This means the appellate court has to sieve through the appeal records, consider the written submissions and listen to the oral submissions before arriving at a decision regarding the appeal.

In addition, the Court of Appeal maintained the same bail conditions initially set by the Sessions Court for Ramesh. This includes a bail sum of RM200,000 with one surety, as well as the requirement for Ramesh to surrender his passport to the court.

Ramesh was originally charged with three counts of insider trading at the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court in April 2015.

Per the first charge, it was alleged that he disposed of five million MMM shares in January 2010 while possessing material inside information regarding the proposed downgrade by Malaysian Rating Corp Bhd of its credit rating on MMM’s RM120 million Al-Bai’ Bithaman Ajil Islamic Debt Securities from A-ID to BB+ID.

Per the second and third charges, Ramesh was alleged to have disposed of a total of 5,200,800 MMM shares in February 2010, while possessing material inside information regarding the classification of MMM as a Practice Note 17 company.

He was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and fined RM3 million (in default of three years’ imprisonment) for each charge.