MAS bans ex-Goldman banker Roger Ng for life

Michelle Zhu

Michelle Zhu

Published Tue, Sep 5, 2023 · 03:02 PM
    • Roger Ng, a former banker for Goldman Sachs, is permanently prohibited from performing any regulated activity under the SFA and from providing any financial advisory services under the FAA.
    • Roger Ng, a former banker for Goldman Sachs, is permanently prohibited from performing any regulated activity under the SFA and from providing any financial advisory services under the FAA. PHOTO: BLOOMBERG

    THE Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has issued lifetime prohibition orders against Ng Chong Hwa, the former Goldman Sachs banker also known as Roger Ng.

    Under the prohibition orders effective Tuesday (Sep 5), he will be permanently prohibited from performing any regulated activity under the Securities and Futures Act (SFA), and from providing any financial advisory services under the Financial Advisers Act (FAA).

    Ng is also permanently banned from taking part in the management, acting as a director, or becoming a substantial shareholder of any capital market and financial advisory services firm under the SFA and FAA.

    The former banker was sentenced to 10 years in prison in March this year, after being convicted in the US in April 2022 for conspiring to launder billions of dollars misappropriated from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) between 2009 and 2014.

    The misappropriated funds included money raised by 1MDB through three bond offering transactions underwritten by Goldman Sachs along with its subsidiaries and affiliates.

    As part of the scheme, Ng and his co-conspirators were found by the court to have bribed government officials in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi in order to obtain and retain business from 1MDB.

    They also conspired to circumvent Golden Sachs’ internal accounting controls in connection with the three bond offering transactions and other 1MDB businesses.

    Such “severe misconduct” gave MAS reason to believe that it would be “contrary to public interest” to allow Ng to carry on business as a representative, said the authority on Tuesday.

    Ng’s then-boss at Goldman Sachs and co-conspirator in the scheme, Tim Leissner, was issued a similar lifetime prohibition order by MAS back in 2018, after his admission to the criminal charges brought against him by the US Department of Justice. 

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