SEC won’t let 60 others off-the-hook in BW stock scandal

The "disappointed" Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has vowed to crack down on more than 50 individuals, eight brokers, and two investment houses for involvement in the BW Resources Corp. stock fraud scandal.

"We will get them administratively," SEC Chairman Lilia Bautista told reporters last Friday. Bautista is still smarting from the Department of Justice’s decision to charge only. Dante Tan and two of his associates for stock manipulation.

Bautista said there is nothing that can prevent SEC from filing a petition for review or making "a new filing which could also include whatever findings we have" against the justice department’s move to clear everyone except the three individuals.

The SEC earlier asked the DOJ to file charges against Tan, former BW Resources president Eduardo "Moonie" Lim Jr., investor Jimmy Juan and more than 50 other individuals, eight brokers and two investment houses for stock manipulation.

"We are disappointed," Bautista told reporters last Wednesday following the posting of Tan’s lawyer of P120,000 cash bond at the Pasig Regional Trial Court for Tan, Juan and Lim.

The BW Resources insider trading scandal has been incorporated into the impeachment case against President who, as a close friend of Tan, allegedly interfered in SEC’s investigation on the company’s alleged involvement in stock manipulation.

After hearing of the DOJ’s criminal charges against Tan, Mr. Estrada boasted to reporters last Wednesday that the justice department’s move proved that he meant what he said during his inaugural address in 1998: That he would grant no favors to family and friends.

However, Bautista said that to protect the integrity of the stock market, the justice department should hold more people responsible for the insider trading scandal, adding that the filing of charges against Tan and two others left much to be desired.

She said as part of its agenda for next year SEC will work for the inclusion of the others who did not land on the list of people supposedly accountable for the stock price manipulation.