SEC should have called for CEO to resign over insider trading

This saga has raised the level of good governance in Thailand. Credit for that should have gone exclusively to the chairperson of the mutual fund association, Voravan Tarapoom, whose tenacity is unusually courageous and admirable.
The latest development in calling for a boycott of additional investments in CP All by private and public fund managers should have an effect.
But it will unlikely be decisive because the company has been most lucrative, especially when the business is so well known and is now part of our lifestyle.
The main credit for the convenience store chain’s success is given to the offender, who is also its CEO. So, the reluctance to sack this CEO is understandable and somewhat hard to stomach for the main stakeholders, especially when the compromise of a Bt30-million fine (equivalent to the gain from that insider trading) was paid back by the culprit in exchange for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) dropping a threat of prosecuting and jailing him.
In hindsight, the SEC should have imposed another condition. That is, for the culprit to resign to avoid imprisonment. Then we would not have had to face this dilemma and Thailand’s good corporate governance would have been enhanced immensely.
However, it is now the duty of the SEC to use its influence to mend the bad publicity for the capital market and not have to rely on the private sector when it has lesser force to succeed.
Songdej Praditsmanont