Hong Kong film producer and actor Raymond Wong Pak-ming has been found guilty of sharing insider information with his sister to trade shares of an entertainment company he chaired in 2017, bringing her more than HK$1 million (US$127,650) in profit.
Magistrate Ko Wai-hung of Eastern Court on Friday found Wong had made “absurd and illogical” explanations for his messages to younger sister Jenny Wong, ruling he had knowingly advised her to buy shares in Transmit Entertainment, a television series production company previously known as Pegasus Entertainment Holdings, which he controlled in 2017.
The magistrate found that the 79-year-old, who was in negotiations with a potential buyer to sell his shares, had transferred HK$2 million to his sister and instructed her to bulk trade between August 25 and October 17, 2017.
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Messages exchanged between the siblings were read out in court, with Wong telling his sister in one message: “Buy as much as you can when it is under HK$0.20.”
Prosecutors from the Securities and Futures Commission alleged the defendant sent similar messages to Jenny Wong on three occasions, to which she replied that she had bought additional shares afterwards.
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During the trial, Raymond Wong denied informing his sister, claiming he was annoyed at her asking him multiple times about his company’s stock.
He said he had been speaking to her in a “sarcastic way” when he asked her to go all in, arguing that the use of irony had been part of their communication style since childhood.