WASHINGTON, Feb. 5 (UPI) -- Former Dow Jones & Co. board member David Li Kwok Po agreed to pay an $8.1 million fine in Washington Tuesday to settle charges of insider trading.
The chairman and chief executive of the Bank of East Asia did not admit any wrongdoing. Three others, Michael Leung Kai Hung, his daughter Charlotte Ka On Wong Leung and his son-in-law Kan King Wong were also fined an aggregate $24 million, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Prosecutors said Li told Leung on April 13, 2007, New Corp. was assembling an offer to purchase Dow Jones and Co. with an unsolicited buyout bid of $5 billion. Leung then told his son-in-law, who bought 200,000 Dow Jones shares in the next three days for $7.175 million.
In late April, he purchased 215,000 more shares.
When news of the News Corp. offer broke May 1, the value of the Dow Jones shares jumped 50 percent. On May 4, the family sold 415,000 Dow Jones shares, gaining $8.1 million.
The Securities Exchange Commission, however, arranged in May to freeze the family's bank account at Merrill Lynch and Co.
