SEC appeals court ruling on charges vs Dante Tan

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has asked the Court of Appeals to nullify a ruling by the Pasig Regional Trial Court dismissing one of the stock manipulation cases the agency filed against fugitive businessman Dante Tan.

Tan, the former head of the controversial BW Resources Corp. and a crony of former President Estrada, has been tagged as the main culprit behind the steep rise and fall of BW stocks in 1999.

In its petition for certiorari, the SEC also asked the CA to set aside the order of Judge Briccio Ygana of the Pasig RTC, granting Tan’s demurrer to evidence.

A demurrer is a legal step one takes to have the case dismissed on grounds that the prosecution failed to prove its charges.

In his ruling, Judge Ygana said the evidence presented by government lawyers against Tan on charges of insider trading "were not proven or established, and in some instances, even the supposed ‘original documents’ were not presented."

The SEC came up with 189 pages of supposed evidence against Tan but his lawyers argued that the documents were "records from private entities such as stock brokerage houses."

"Therefore the regulator could not certify the authenticity and validity of the documents which were neither issued nor prepared by the commission," Tan’s counsels said.

"Hence, a certification by the SEC is nothing more than hearsay as far as the documents in question were concerned," they added.

But the SEC has accused Ygana of gravely abusing his discretion in denying the admission of evidence of certain documents.

"Exhibits ‘C’ and ‘D’ are official written acts of public officers, hence, admissible in evidence without further proof of their authenticity and genuineness," the SEC said.

The SEC said the State has the right to prosecute people who violate its penal laws.

Philippine authorities have been on the hunt for Tan for having allegedly created a false and misleading appearance of active trading in BW stocks, which nearly caused the collapse of the stockmarket in 1999.

In a mere eight-month period ending in Oct. 2000, BW’s stock price shot up more than 5,200 percent, from P2 to P107 per share. The unusual price movement took place in an absence of public disclosures as company officials were unable to explain the abrupt changes in the share prices.

After much speculation, the stock eventually plummeted the day after Macau casino mogul Stanley Ho had taken a minority stake and had been elected company chairman. Because of this, many small investors suffered losses as the stock price has not been able to recover.