The Philippine Court of Appeals today (March 24) ordered the Securities and Exchange Commission to halt its investigation of possible insider dealing in the shares of gaming group BW Resources Corporation less than 24 hours before the regulatory body was due to present its preliminary findings to the Justice Department.
The order will remain in effect until the court has ruled on the legality of the SEC probe and was issued in response to a petition by Jimmy Juan,áone of 11 individuals and companies the report says should be prosecuted.
Followers of the proceedings say Juan is acting at the behest of Dante Tan, his employer who is also mentioned in the report. Tan is a close friend of Philippine president Joseph Estrada and formerly served as a presidential adviser.
"It is a cover-up of sorts, which seems to go all the way to the top," says one country expert.
SEC chairman Perfecto Yasay said President Estrada requested four times towards the end of last year he drop his investigation into the trading of BW Resources shares and clear Tan of any wrongdoing. Yasay added his refusal to comply with the president's demands resulted in an agreement he would step down on March 25.
A separate Philippine Stock Exchange enquiry is widely expected to exonerate all those accused of insider dealing in the SEC report. However, the report's credibility suffered a setback when the PSE's compliance department resigned en masse on 7 March, citing an attempted whitewash of the BW Resources affair as one of the reasons for their departure.
In the wake of the walk-out, Yasay issued an order to close the stockmarket, but was subsequently overruled by his fellow commissioners, who were under considerable pressure from above to block the SEC chief's move, say insiders.
BW Resources share price in 1999 rose from a low of Ps1.76á on 12 January to a high of Ps107.00 on 11 October. Since this peak, the price collapsed as far down as Ps2.75 and last traded at Ps6.90.
