Despite Securities Commission's rectification, Mirae Asset still commits basic violations

During the period from June 8 to June 16, Mr. Nguyen Van Nghia - Member of the Board of Directors of Lizen Joint Stock Company (stock code LCG) - placed an order to sell LCG shares. However, instead of selling, Mirae Asset Securities Joint Stock Company (Vietnam) executed a transaction to buy 20,000 LCG shares (on June 9) which was not in accordance with the customer's transaction order. Not only that, Mirae Asset also sold in excess of the customer's registered transaction volume (selling in excess of 20,000 LCG shares).

During the above trading period, LCG shares fluctuated at around VND13,000/share. Thus, 20,000 LCG shares are worth approximately VND260 million.

The State Securities Commission (SSC) later fined Mirae Asset for violating regulations on receiving and executing customer trading orders. Accordingly, the securities company was fined VND112.5 million.

When reporters contacted Mirae Asset’s leadership, they only received an explanation that this was a mistake by a group of brokers in the company. This person did not provide a solution for the case of investor Nguyen Van Nghia.

Speaking to Lao Dong, investor Vu Thuy Nga (Nam Tu Liem, Hanoi ) expressed concern that Mirae Asset's actions had significantly affected trust. She said: "I think there are many signs of stock manipulation. Not only that, this incident also affects the transparency of the stock market, while the entire system is trying to upgrade from a frontier market to an emerging market."

On forums, many investors also questioned why this is a large securities company but has made a basic error.

"Buying or selling stocks by placing an order on behalf of someone else will be accompanied by an SMS message for verification, and this is the case with all securities companies. So the mistake here is really hard to understand," commented an investor.

In another development, the State Securities Commission has just issued a decision to administratively fine DNSE Securities Joint Stock Company with a fine of 125 million VND. The reason is that this unit allowed 4 accounts to place orders to buy securities when there was not enough money in the account.

Or not long before that, on August 24, APG Securities was fined 60 million VND for selling more than 635,900 PSG shares (Saigon Petroleum Investment and Construction Joint Stock Company), leading to the share holding ratio after the transaction decreasing from 6% to 5% but not reporting.

It is worth mentioning that the series of violations by securities companies continued to occur despite the fact that in May, the State Securities Commission sent a document to securities companies reminding them to rectify their operations. Accordingly, securities companies must strictly comply with regulations in business activities; strengthen internal control and risk management.

Source