A Malaysian was today jailed 16 weeks by the State Courts of Singapore for 'spoofing' the republic's stock market.

In a statement, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said this was the first conviction for market misconduct under the joint investigations arrangement with the Commercial Affairs Department of the Singapore Police Force.

MAS said Dennis Tey Thean Yang was convicted of offences involving the employment of a device or scheme to defraud two Contracts for Differences (CFD) providers, IG Asia Pte Ltd and CMC Markets Singapore Pte Ltd.

Between Oct 24, 2012 and Jan 8, 2013, while working as a remisier with DBS Vickers Securities (Singapore) Pte Ltd, Tey transacted in CFDs where the underlying securities were listed on the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Ltd. 

The CFDs were offered by IG Asia and CMC Markets, said MAS.

According to the statement, Tey knew that the CFDs were generally priced on a real-time basis to the live prices of the underlying securities. 

He employed a strategy known as 'spoofing', which involved entering false orders in the underlying securities in order to temporarily change the prices of the securities and thereby, the prices of the corresponding CFDs. 

He then executed the CFD trades at prices which were beneficial to him but were detrimental to the two CFD providers.

After executing the CFD trades, Tey removed the false orders for the underlying securities.

Tey used different trading accounts to enter the false orders in the underlying securities and to execute the CFD trades, and made a total profit of S$30,239 (S$1=RM3.14), said MAS.

On July 22, last year, he was charged in the State Courts with 23 charges under section 201(a) and (b) of the Securities and Futures Act (SFA). 

Meanwhile, on March 10, this year, Tey pleaded guilty to eight of these charges and agreed to have the remaining 15 charges taken into account by the court when sentencing.

- Bernama