BD Welding MD, journo get 3 years in prison for share scandal

A special tribunal has found the former managing director of BD Welding and a journalist guilty of manipulating share prices of the company listed on the stock exchange.
Former BD Welding top official SM Nurul Islam and Daily Industry Editor Enayet Karim have been sentenced to three years in jail for propping up share prices through false information in 2007.
They have been fined by Tk 2 million each and will spend another six months in jail if they do not pay it up.
The court said the two provided false information to the market, which caused BD Welding stock prices to hike from Tk 6.9 to Tk 42.50.On Mar 6, 2007, the stock regulator opened an inquiry into the abnormal hike in share prices of the company.
It found the then BD Welding managing director had told the Dhaka Stock Exchange that the company was in talks with Saudi Investment Group al Awad for an oxygen plant in Chittagong.
He also told the DSE that the Saudi group forwarded a proposal to visit BD Welding’s plant on Mar 9 the same year.
Investigations revealed that no foreign entity visited their plant.
Documents seized from the company’s office showed that the emails sent in the name of al Awad Group were sent from the office of Daily Industry Editor Enayet Karim.
The newspaper, which was then the ‘Weekly Industry’, ran the news of BD Welding in talks with Saudi investors on Mar 1, 2007. – Special Correspondent