How Much Fine For Cooking Your Books? Part III

On today's Business Times:

• Heavier sentence for 2 ex-MEMS directors
  
  Published: 2011/01/12
  
  THE High Court has allowed the Securities Commission Malaysia’s (SC) appeal against the Sessions Court’s sentence of RM300,000 fine each on the former directors of MEMS Technology Bhd, Ooi Boon Leong and Tan Yeow Teck.
  
  The High Court retained the Sessions Court’s original fine and enhanced the sentence with a six-month imprisonment term each following the appeal by SC for a higher sentence in view of the severity of the offence.
  
  In February last year, Ooi and Tan, had pleaded guilty before the Sessions Court and were fined RM300,000 each for authorising the furnishing of misleading information to Bursa. — Bernama

Only a six-month imprisonment?

Posted 9th Oct 2010: Lack Of Punishment For Corporate Crimes!

• And then the Mems Technology fiasco!
  
  I could be wrong but I felt it was important because Mems Technology was highly regarded by the local brokerage houses. All of them gave the stock a high recommendation.
  In the posting MEMS Told To Correct Its Financial Statements!, I noted that ".. by overstating its earnings by a mere 8 million, based on market capital, Mems managed to value itself 531 million. ". Mems on the date of that posting, on 28th Oct 2009, has a market capital of a mere 42 million!"

30th June 2010: Have You Taken A Look At MEMS lately?

• MEMS was to rectify the financial statements by excluding RM49.183 million from its revenue for all the three financial statements.
  
  The basis of the SC's directive was that the amount was derived from transactions that never took place in the respective financial years and period.