http://www.theage.com.au/business/watchdog-seeks-travel-ban-for-hanlong-execs-wife-20111202-1o9z3.html
Watchdog seeks travel ban for Hanlong exec's wife
Leonie Lamont
December 2, 2011 - 10:38AM
The corporate watchdog has applied for urgent travel restrictions on the wife of a Hanlong executive, after her husband - who is at the centre of an insider trading investigation - failed to return from what should have been a brief visit to China.
This morning, Justice Reg Barrett in the NSW Supreme Court was told that Chinese miner Hanlong's managing director, Steven Hui Xiao, should have returned from his overseas visit on November 26th.
Counsel for the Australian Securities and Investment Commission, David Stack, said the court had earlier granted permission for Mr Xiao to travel to China to present his doctoral thesis.
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''We have been told by his solicitor that after his thesis was rejected he went to see a doctor who said that his heart condition was such he should not (fly) and return to Australia,'' Mr Stack said.
He said Mr Xiao, a Chinese citizen, had not applied to vary the current court orders. He asked the court to order that Mr Xiao provide by next Tuesday an affidavit explaining his failure to return. Mr Stack said Mr Xiao's wife, Xike Hu - who is also under investigation - had consented to the order sought by ASIC that she be restricted from leaving the country. She has already handed over her passport, and remains at the couple's upper north shore home with their two young children.
ASIC is investigating suspect trades by three Hanlong executives, and their partners, in Sundance and Bannerman Resources, which were both takeover targets of Hanlong. The Supreme Court has heard trading accounts associated with the executives and their partners made nearly $1.8 million in profit from dealing in contracts for difference related to the two Australian miners.
Funds in those accounts, and some properties in Sydney, are among assets already frozen by the court.
Hanlong has stood down the three men under investigation, and has sought to distance itself. No one has been charged.
BusinessDay has already reported that ASIC's ongoing inquiry is delaying a decision by the Foreign Investment Review Board regarding Hanlong's $1.65 billion takeover bid for Sundance Resources.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/business/watchdog-seeks-travel-ban-for-hanlong-execs-wife-20111202-1o9z3.html#ixzz1fKdV4i9T
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