VST Holdings head jailed for share price manipulation

Li Jialin, the president of VST Holdings, was sentenced to six months in jail on Wednesday for manipulating the price of his company’s shares.

The District Court heard that Li used three securities accounts to buy and sell shares of VST, a mainland-based distributor of information technology products, to manipulate their prices. VST is listed in Hong Kong.

One of the three accounts had been set up in his name, another jointly with his wife and a third in his brother’s name, the court heard.

Li was convicted last week of 10 charges of price rigging between August 2007 and January 2008.

He was also fined HK$240,000 for his conviction on 16 counts of failure to disclose his interest in the company’s shares, and was ordered to pay HK$168,000 for an investigation by the Securities and Futures Commission.

Judge Douglas Yau Tak-hong said in sentencing that he needed to impose an immediate sentence because Li’s behaviour could undermine the city’s financial system and weaken investors’ confidence.