KUALA LUMPUR: The Court of Appeal today allowed the Securities Commission Malaysia’s (SC) appeal to set aside a High Court decision that acquitted former Malaysian Merchant Marine Berhad (MMM) executive deputy chairman Datuk Ramesh Rajaratnam for insider trading.
According to the statement issued by the SC today, Justices Datuk Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera, Datuk Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim and Datuk Wong Kian Kheong unanimously ruled that the High Court had erred in acquitting Ramesh without considering the merits of the case.
Wong held that the appellate court has a judicial duty after trial and on appeal to consider the merits of the appeal.
“The Court of Appeal accordingly sets 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, adding that the Court of Appeal further directed that the case be remitted to the High Court to be heard on the merits before another High Court judge and maintained a bail of RM200,000 with one surety for Ramesh, with the condition that his passport be surrendered to the court.
Ramesh was charged at the Sessions Court here on April 29, 2015 with three counts of insider trading under Section 188(2)(a) of the Capital Markets and Services Act 2007 (CMSA).
For the first charge, he was alleged to have disposed 5,000,000 MMM shares on Jan 11, 2010 while in possession of material inside information relating to the proposed credit rating downgrade of MMM’s RM120 million Al-Bai’ Bithaman Ajil Islamic Debt Securities from A-ID to BB+ID by Malaysian Rating Corporation Berhad.
For the second and third charges, he was alleged to have disposed a total of 5,200,800 MMM shares on Feb 11 and Feb 22, 2010, while in possession of material inside information relating to the classification of MMM as a PN17 company.
On Sept 11, 2019 the Sessions Court convicted Ramesh on all three charges and sentenced him to five years’ imprisonment and a fine of RM3 million (in default three years jail) for each charge. The imprisonment terms were ordered to run concurrently.
Ramesh subsequently filed an appeal against his conviction and sentence at the High Court. On May 20, 2021 the High Court allowed Ramesh’s appeal and set aside the conviction and sentence on all three charges.
According to the SC, the SC with the public prosecutor’s consent decided not to pursue the appeal in respect of the second and third charges.
