KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 14): Former Malaysian Merchant Marine Bhd (MMM) executive deputy chairman Datuk Ramesh Rajaratnam has been granted a stay of his criminal trial at the High Court here for insider trading, pending his appeal at the Federal Court.

High Court judge K Muniandy gave his decision on Wednesday, to allow the stay after prosecutors and Ramesh’s lawyers had submitted their arguments for, and against the stay.

This comes after the Court of Appeal (COA) allowed the Securities Commission Malaysia’s (SC) appeal against Ramesh’s acquittal by the High Court previously.

On May 6, the COA reversed the ruling made by the High Court in May 2021, which had granted Ramesh’s appeal, and nullified the conviction and sentence imposed by the Sessions Court on all three charges of insider trading against him.

COA judges Datuk Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera, Datuk Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim, and Datuk Wong Kian Kheong ruled that the High Court had erred in acquitting Ramesh without considering the case’s merits.

Ramesh was first charged with three counts of insider trading at the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court in April 2015. He was later sentenced to five years’ jail and fined RM3 million (in default of three years’ imprisonment) for each charge.

Under the first charge, he allegedly sold five million MMM shares in January 2010, while possessing inside information regarding the proposed downgrade by Malaysian Rating Corp Bhd of its credit rating on MMM’s RM120 million Al-Bai’ Bithaman Ajil Islamic Debt Securities from A-ID to BB+ID.

Under the second and third charges, Ramesh is accused of selling 5.2 million MMM shares in February 2010, while possessing inside information regarding the classification of MMM as a Practice Note 17 company.

The COA, in setting aside the High Court’s decision in acquitting Ramesh on the first charge, also reinstated the earlier conviction and sentence imposed by the Sessions Court.

The court then directed that the case be remitted back to the High Court to be re-tried before another judge. However, the SC, with the consent of the public prosecutor, decided not to pursue the appeal in respect of the second and third charges.

The SC is pursuing the first charge.

The trial will now depend on what the Federal Court has decided.