Singapore Pledges More Regulatory Action After Winning Share Rigging Suit

[Musicwhiz]

This case is pretty interesting.....apparently it will be extremely difficult to actually "prove" share price manipulation if one's intention is simply to accumulate shares in an illiquid company. Assuming a company's shares are hardly traded, this would mean that it would be rather difficult to accumulate a sizeable position without significantly pushing UP the share price.

In this case, these guys were in charge of a Fund; thus it may be proven that by jacking up the share price, they stood to gain monetarily from performance fees; then again it could of course be "just a coincidence" that they decided to accumulate such a large position close to the end of the month, when funds tally up their results and NAV. I would think that they can argue a good case assuming they have the facts to back it up - that they had purchased illiquid securities before, and regardless of timing of purchase (i.e. at any time during the month or quarter).

Market Manipulation is undoubtedly a serious crime; but to be able to prove it for illiquid counters is somewhat difficult, and it will be interesting to see if more cases like these surface. Incidentally, I note that this was back in 2004 and the case took 6 years to come to court and for the court to issue a verdict!