The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) of Hong Kong has suspended the licence of Mr Tang Wai Choi, a former licensed representative of Shanxi Securities International Limited (SSIL), for seven months.

The license suspension will run from 28 October 2025 to 27 May 2026.

As part of an investigation into a suspected ramp-and-dump scheme, the SFC found that between 10 July 2019 and 10 December 2019, Tang, unbeknownst to SSIL, had logged into a client’s securities account and placed 945 orders for the client via the internet without valid written authorisation.

He also failed to maintain proper records of the order instructions from the client.

Tang’s conduct not only deprived SSIL of the ability to be reasonably certain about the identity of the person responsible for originating the order instructions for transactions in the client’s account, but also prevented SSIL from discharging its obligation to maintain a proper audit trail of the client’s instructions.

In addition to exposing clients to the potential risk of unauthorised trading and licensed corporations to the risk of potential trade disputes, such kind of behaviour could also facilitate market misconduct by obscuring the true source of trades and hindering efforts to trace and monitor suspicious trading activities.

In deciding the sanction, the SFC has taken into account a variety of factors, including the duration and frequency of Tang’s misconduct, the need to send a deterrent message to the industry that conduct of this nature is not acceptable, and Tang’s otherwise clean disciplinary record.