The Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong has banned an HSBC relationship manager from re-entering the financial services industry for life and an employee of Hang Seng Bank for three years. Both have already been sentenced for their crimes.

The regulator imposed the life ban on Ms Chen Chia Hui, formerly of HSBC, in the wake of her conviction for bribery. She was sentenced by the District Court on 6 May to 18 months’ imprisonment for contravening ss9(1)(a) and 12(1) Prevention of Bribery Ordinance. She accepted a secret commission of $500,000 in February 2013 as compensation for recommending and selling to an HSBC customer an insurance policy issued by a competitor. Chen also did not make it clear to the customer that the insurance policy was not a product of HSBC’s, despite being its employee.

Meanwhile, the court has also prohibited Mr William Wong Yick Lok, a former employee of Hang Seng Bank, from re-entering the industry for three years, having been convicted of forgery. His job was to promote insurance policies to the bank’s customers. He forged a customer’s signature on an insurance application and a policy cancellation form without the customer’s knowledge. Wong was sentenced to perform community service of 140 hours at the Fanling Magistrates’ Court on 10 December 2015 after his conviction for two counts of forgery under the Crimes Ordinance. Hang Seng Bank has compensated the customer in question with a refund of the premium of $2,054 that he paid for the insurance policy.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority referred both cases to the SFC.