Freeze of assets in ChinaCast case to stay
Judge unmoved byex-accounting chief's claims of innocence over education firm
A Hong Kong judge has extended an order freezing the assets of Jim Ma Jim Lok, a former chief accounting officer of ChinaCast Education, an education services provider formerly listed on Nasdaq.
In September, the US Securities and Exchange Commission charged ChinaCast's former chief executive, Chan Tze Ngon, with stealing tens of millions of dollars from investors in its Nasdaq initial public offering and charged Jiang Xiangyuan, ChinaCast's former China president, with illegally dumping ChinaCast stock after he helped steal company assets, the SEC said on its website.
ChinaCast delisted from Nasdaq in June last year.
On June 19 this year, Mr Justice Louis Tong Po-sun granted an injunction freezing the Hong Kong assets of Ma, Chan, Jiang and Antonio Sena, a former chief financial officer of ChinaCast.
Ma maintains he is not involved in any fraud in ChinaCast.
In a Court of First Instance ruling on Monday that continued the injunction, Mr Justice Anthony Chan Kin-keung said: "I am not convinced about Ma's explanations. Just looking at the unauthorised borrowings and the pledges, there is a strong inference that there were too many irregularities to have escaped an honest chief accounting officer. It is very difficult for such unlawful acts to have escaped Ma."