Exchange imposes nine-month ban over Codebank listing
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, a global accounting firm that also runs an investment banking unit, has been banned by the stock exchange from sponsoring new listings for nine months for its due diligence failures on the collapsed Codebank.
Deloitte & Touche Corporate Finance failed to disclose certain overdue and unpaid obligations in Codebank's listing document when it sponsored the e-commerce firm's public offering in December 2001, the exchange said yesterday.
The firm also failed to report Codebank's more than $10 million outstanding listing proceeds to the regulator until May 2002, and failed to make a careful inquiry into the listed company's inaccurate declaration of the fund to the exchange. Deloitte also failed to report the change in payment arrangements, the exchange said.
Codebank was delisted in January last year. It reported net losses of $52.8 million in 2001 and $90.9 million in 2000, the only periods it released full-year earnings.
Deloitte will be refrained from acting as sponsor for listings on both the main board and the Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) for nine months, while its principal supervisor Lawrence Chia Kee Loong will be suspended from working any sponsorship mandate for six months, according to the Securities and Futures Commission.