Mo Yuk-ping, wife of jailed Shanghai tycoon Chau Ching-ngai, was yesterday convicted of manipulating the shares of her husband's former company.
District Court Judge Alan Wright found the 42-year-old socialite and her secretary, Chung Sau-ling, 30, guilty of manipulating the shares of listed Shanghai Land Holdings between June 2002 and May 2003.
Handing down the verdict, the judge said he was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the evidence as a whole established a dishonest agreement between Mo, her husband and Chung, one 'designed to create false or misleading appearance of active trading in the shares of Shanghai Land'.
Mo was also found guilty of another count of conspiring with Chau, her personal aide Joanne Lui Ching-yee and others, between March and May 2003, to defraud the Bank of China by manipulating the shares of Shanghai Land.
Mo, with Chung and solicitor Wong Pui-fai, 43, were also found guilty of perverting the course of justice by giving false information to the Securities and Futures Commission from April to May 2003 in relation to an investigation into the trade in Shanghai Land shares.
The judge cleared Mo of a charge of asking her stockbroker, Hideki Hue Ying-fai, to persuade his wife, Joanne Hui, to give the ICAC a false statement.