Thailand takes aim at stock market manipulatio

Thailand's securities and exchange commission (SEC) is planning a raft of new rules to stop stock-market manipulation, which will permit the watchdog file civil lawsuits and impose hefty fines on law- breakers, Bloomberg reports from Bangkok.

The rules were inspired by the success of US regulators in getting financial settlements, SEC secretary general Vorapol Socatiyanurak said.

A bill with the proposals has been sent to the leaders of Thailand's military junta, known as the National Council for Peace and Order.

“We hope the new legislation will scare any stock manipulators,” Vorapol said. “We may not be able to put them in jail but at least we can prevent them from enjoying the huge profit from illegal equity trading and can impose huge amount of fines on them.”

Thailand’s proposed rules come at a time of growing focus on regulation in the region and around the world.

In South Korea, competition authorities are probing the country's four largest commercial banks over possible interest rates collusion, adding to a growing list of investigations globally into the alleged rigging of various financial prices and benchmarks.

The Korean investigation comes as prosecutors and regulators around the world probing the scandal over collusion and rigging of the London interbank offered rate, a major interbank lending benchmark for more than $300 trillion (€227.4 trillion) of securities worldwide.

So far at least nine financial firms have been fined about $6 billion for manipulating Libor.

Separately, the junta's leader, Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha, has been officially appointed Thailand's prime minister after a vote in the National Legislative Assembly, whose members he selected. He received official endorsement from King Bhumibol Adulyadej on August 24th.

The general led Thailand’s 12th putsch in 82 years on May 22nd.