PTT CEO violated state enterprise rules, MP says

Teerachart Pangwiroonrak, who is also Democrat MP, has threatened to bring a charge against the oil and gas company’s board of directors for negligence of duty if PTT’s audit committee probing the Pailin case rules on Friday that he is not guilty.
“If the board says Pailin served at F&N with its consent, it must come up with clear evidence to prove it,” Teerachart said.
Pailin accepted the invitation from F&N in February to be a director and stepped down in May. Last week he insisted that he did not violate any law. He said he was not worried about the investigation by the company’s audit committee, adding that he asked for the investigation himself in April.
Last Thursday, the House’s anti-corruption committee asked PTT acting chairman Chulasingh Vasantasingh and Pailin to discuss with the panel whether the latter had breached a 1975 law governing the qualification of board directors and employees of state enterprises. However, the discussion was postponed at the request of the PTT board, which wants to wait for the result of the probe of its own audit committee so that it has more information.
Teerachart said regulations permitted state officials to sit on a maximum of three boards of state enterprises, and this must be with the consent of their superiors. Executives under state-enterprise contracts can assume a directorship post only at subsidiaries of their state enterprises, again with the consent of their board.
He noted that F&N is a private company and not a PTT subsidiary and claimed that Pailin’s service on its board was not under the consent of the PTT board. Therefore, he was sure that Pailin breached an article of the 1975 law that requires state-enterprise executives to dedicate their work full-time to their agency. If it is found that Pailin violated this law, he has to be removed from the CEO post.
Pailin’s contract also obligates him to dedicate his time fully to PTT and not to commit any act that might damage the company.
Pailin sent an internal letter to executives and employees to explain his reason for taking the post of independent director at F&N – that he wanted to learn the management style at this international company and apply the knowledge to manage PTT. He said this did not entail a conflict of interest and did not affect PTT’s operations in the least.
Teerachart said that if the PTT audit committee on Friday rules that Pailin did not violate the law, his House committee would bring a charge against PTT’s board under Article 157 of the Criminal Code for negligence of duty.
After it makes its ruling, the audit committee is expected to submit a conclusion to the PTT board on July 26.