TR EMERITUS

Very quickly the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) cleared DBS of any form of impropriety around the sale of Hyflux perpetual securities. In its statement MAS noted that "as a distributor of the securities, DBS complied with MAS' requirements to configure its ATM screens to remind investors to read the disclosure documents... 

(Updated on 10 April at 5am:  StanChart will pay US and UK authorities US$1.1bn to settle charges that it violated sanctions and ignored red flags about its customers: more than expected. It’s deferred prosecution deal with the US marshals extended until 2021. Ho Ho Ho.) Standard Chartered is bracing itself for a bumper fine... 

The constructive, nation-building media report that the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (Acra) is watching the Hyflux fiasco closely. And this is newsworthy? It’s ACRA job to investigate, not watch, cock-ups like these. But then being a regulatory bureaucrat is one good way of getting a very expensive free lunch....