Updated at 7.03pm: Former Akai Holdings chairman James Ting filed an application of appeal in the High Court on Tuesday against his conviction and six-year jail sentence for false accounting. The charges relate to a HK$300 million asset entry in the accounts of Akai Holdings, a consumer electronics firm which closed down in 2000 with debts of almost HK$8 billion following a record US$1.72 billion loss. Ting was sentenced in the High Court in July last year to six years in jail for each of two counts of falsifying accounts. During the trial, Ting was charged with falsifying documents to show that Akai - then known as Semi-Tech (Global) - had bought a 50 per cent stake in MicroMain Systems in 1999. The prosecution said the deal, which inflated Semi-Tech's assets by HK$300 million, was bogus and aimed to induce creditors to invest further and refrain from recovery actions. Ting was also accused of writing a letter reaffirming the purchase in June 1999 after an auditor raised questions about the MicroMain transaction. In the Court of Appeal on Tuesday, Ting's lawyer, Allun Joneo QC, argued that evidence given at the time was insufficient to convict his client. He said the trial was short of stock market experts to prove the documents produced by Ting had an impact on the market and the company's share prices. 'The jury was disabled by too much prejudiced information and misdirected by what the prosecution had approved,' Mr Joneo said. Neville Sarony SC, also a lawyer representing Ting, said the MicroMain deal was conducted after Ting had been away from the company's board. Ting's sentence term, to be served concurrently, was among the harshest for white-collar crimes in recent years. The maximum penalty for false accounting is 10 years' imprisonment. High Court judge Madam Clare-Marie Beeson said her sentence took into account that Ting did not falsify the accounts for direct personal gain. Ting had disappeared for more than two years after Akai closed down. He was arrested in 2003 by Hong Kong detectives after landing by helicopter at the Macau ferry terminal.
