SINGAPORE (July 8): Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) banned former Goldman Sachs Group banker Tim Leissner from the city’s financial industry for life.
Last December, the Monetary Authority of Singapore had already banned Leissner, Goldman Sachs’ former Southeast Asia chairman, from the city state’s financial services industry for life. The US slapped a similar ban on him in March this year.
Leissner is noted for his role in helping to siphon off billions of dollars from Malaysian state fund 1MDB.
“Leissner’s conduct demonstrates a serious lack of honesty and integrity and called into question his fitness and properness to be a licensed person,” the Hong Kong SFC said in a statement on July 3.
Leissner, who was licensed in Hong Kong previously, helped arrange three 1MDB bond offerings, with a total sum of US$6.5 billion, in 2012 and 2013. Goldman Sachs underwrote those bonds and earned fees of some US$539 million.
In August, Leissner pleaded guilty to US charges that he conspired to launder money and violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. He agreed to forfeit US$43.7 million and admitted to bribing officials in Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates to get bond deals for Goldman Sachs, which has distanced itself from its former staff.
On June 21, Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said Goldman Sachs offered RM1 billion as compensation for its role in raising funds for 1MDB. He called the amount “little” compared with the “huge killing” that the bank made.
“They did offer some little compensation, it’s not enough,” Mahathir said in the interview with Bloomberg. “We wanted to settle in-house if possible, but it seems that they are not willing to offer a reasonable sum of money.”
