The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) in Hong Kong has declared a suspension of Mr. Hui Lam Chiu.
Hui was a responsible officer of Guoyuan Securities Brokerage Limited, which operates as a subsidiary of Guoyuan Securities CO., from May 19 2017 to November 18 2017. The reason behind this disciplinary action stems from the SFC having sanctioned the Hong Kong-based firm for its breach of the anti-Money Laundering guidelines, as it failed to properly conduct enquiries and scrutiny to mitigate the risks involved with money laundering and terrorist financing while processing third party fund withdrawals and deposits between September 2010 and July 2012.
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Hui was the responsible officer and senior management officer in charge of handling and approving third party transfers at Guoyuan during the aforementioned timeframe. Further, he was one of the employees responsible for ensuring that these transfers were in Compliance with anti-money laundering guidelines.
The SFC’s investigation revealed that the breaches were in part attributed to Hui and his failure to ensure that all reasonable measures were taken to mitigate the aforementioned risks.
Hui was found guilty of not having the company conduct proper enquiries, and following up on some third-party fund transfers despite several red flags suggesting that these were unusual and suspicious. Moreover, Hui’s procedures for dealing with these transfers were not effectively employed to ensure the mitigation of the risk of money laundering.
When the SFC had decided on this disciplinary sanction, the organization took into account all relevant circumstances, which include Hui’s otherwise clean disciplinary record and his cooperation in resolving its concerns regarding the company’s conduct.
Finance Magnates recently covered the SFC's warning against local advisory company Ocean Star Capitals, which has offered its services without having a license. Though these are two different cases, both serve as examples of the SFC's unwavering stance towards companies not following the organization's guidelines.
