A US court has frozen $38m held at brokerage accounts in Hong Kong and Singapore on allegations traders illegally bought shares of Canadian oil group Nexen days before it agreed to be acquired by China’s Cnooc.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday sued Well Advantage, a private company controlled by Zhang Zhirong, a billionaire businessman from China, and other unknown traders for securities fraud for trading based on inside information.
The asset freeze on Friday came one day after the account owned by Well Advantage placed an order to liquidate its Nexen position. The accounts made a combined $13m in profits by trading just a few days before the $15bn takeover was announced on Monday. After the deal was made public, Nexen’s stock rose 52 per cent.