The man convicted of Hong Kong's biggest insider dealing case yesterday argued in the Court of Appeal that he made 'only' HK$1.68 million in profit from his HK$87 million of illegal trades, in a bid to reduce the fine.
Former Morgan Stanley managing director Du Jun is appealing against his conviction in the District Court in 2009 for insider dealing, and contesting his seven-year jail term and HK$23 million fine. The appeal court reserved judgment yesterday at the end of a four-day hearing.
His is the largest insider dealing case in Hong Kong in terms of the money involved, and drew the toughest sentence ever passed for a crime of this nature.
As a Morgan Stanley banker in 2007, Du helped client Citic Resources issue bonds to buy a Kazakhstan oilfield. He used the confidential information he received via e-mails on updates of the deal to trade Citic Resources shares. His BlackBerry record has been cited as evidence that he opened and scrolled through the e-mails to read the information regarding the deals.
Du traded shares worth HK$87 million on nine occasions between February and April 2007, before Citic Resources announced the deal the following month.
The District Court imposed a fine of HK$23 million based on the prosecutor's calculations of the profit Du made from selling 13 million shares - half of the Citic Resources shares he held - for HK$33.4 million in July 2007 after Citic Resources announced the deal in May.
But at yesterday's appeal hearing, his lawyer, John Griffiths SC, and junior counsel Maggie Wong Pui-kei, argued that Du suffered huge losses selling the rest of the Citic Resources shares after the stock slumped during the global financial crisis.