Financial and Monetary Affairs 75
to tighten their risk management amidst market volatility. The SFC also conducted a review of brokers' securities margin financing policies and practices jointly with an accounting firm in anticipation of a volatile market situation.
This thematic exercise complemented the SFC's regular inspection and on-going supervision over risk management practices of securities firms. In addition, the SFC launched an enhanced IT platform to enable secured submission of financial returns by licensed corporations through the Internet and the legislative amendments mandating such electronic submission went into effect on October 1.
On the other hand, the SFC continued to focus its enforcement resources on combating market misconduct and intermediaries who are dishonest or put clients at risk. By year-end, there were 16 outstanding investigations of listed companies. In relation to listed company investigations, the SFC obtained
the SFC obtained the second disqualification order against a former listed company director disallowing him to become a director or be involved in the management of any company for five years. The SFC also commenced similar proceedings against 10 current and former company directors in 2008. For the first time, the SFC would ask the court to make orders that the responsible directors pay compensation to the company for the losses caused by their breaches of duty.
The SFC prosecuted successfully an insider, which marked the first criminal conviction since insider dealing was made a criminal offence under the SFO. By year- end, the SFC had instituted criminal insider dealing proceedings in five cases. The SFC continued to make applications seeking urgent interim freezing orders over money and other property. These orders prevented assets and property held by or on behalf of persons suspected of being involved in insider dealing from being dissipated during the SFC's investigations.
During 2008, the SFC prosecuted successfully seven entities for market manipulation and providing false or misleading information in a company announcement, and summonses were issued to an additional eight entities but those cases were not concluded by year-end. Twenty-two cases were referred to the Police in 2008.
Investor education continues to be a priority of the SFC's work. The investor education theme in 2008 was 'Know Your Risk', which aimed at encouraging investors to understand different aspects of 'risk' in their investments, including market volatility, increasing complexity of products, scams and malpractices.
To get the educational message across to the community, the SFC made extensive use of various media, such as television and radio programmes, audio- visual programmes on buses and free newspapers. Its essay competition also received wide press coverage. A total of 10 winners were recognised for sharing their lessons, mostly learned the hard way.
The SFC also put fresh focus on using cyberspace to reach out to the public. In October, the InvestEd website was relaunched featuring easier navigation, more