Former Sirtex boss pleads guilty to insider trading

Gilman Edwin Wong is also disqualified from managing corporations for a period of five years.

Former chief executive and director of cancer treatment biotechnology play Sirtex Medical, Gilman Edwin Wong.

The former chief executive and director of cancer treatment biotechnology play Sirtex Medical, Gilman Edwin Wong, has been sentenced in the District Court of NSW having pleaded guilty to an offence of insider trading linked to a $2.1m share deal conducted in 2016.

Appearing before Judge Bennett SC, Mr Wong, of Sydney, was sentenced to one year and six months' imprisonment, but to be immediately released on recognisance of $10,000 and to be of good behaviour for three years.

Flowing from the conviction over the insider trading charge, Mr Wong is also disqualified from managing corporations for a period of five years.

In October 2016 while in possession of inside information concerning Sirtex’s sales, Mr Wong sold 74,968 Sirtex shares for an average price of $28.56 per share, totalling $2.141 million. The shares he sold represented more than one fourth of his total holding. The share sale was later explained as covering tax liabilities from vesting rights on other shares.

Two months later Sirtex released a trading update to investors on the ASX downgrading its growth forecasts for the 2017 financial year in light of sales figures in the year to date period. Following the announcement, Sirtex shares opened almost 50 per cent lower to fall to $13.01, against a price of $25.49 in the previous day.

The value of Mr Wong’s Sirtex shares had they been sold at the volume weighted average price on the day they collapsed due to the disappointing trading update would have been $1.12m.

In early 2017, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission began to investigate Mr Wong’s share trading and Sirtex terminated his employment as CEO. The biotech company had risen to great heights under his watch and prior to its sale in early 2018 Sirtex was one of the nation’s top 200 companies and included in the S&P/ASX 200 index.

According to ASIC, in his capacity of CEO and director of Sirtex, Mr Wong was aware of confidential information relating to the global dose sales of Sirtex’s product, SIR-Spheres. At the time Mr Wong sold his Sirtex shares on October 26, 2016, he was in possession of inside information, namely, actual dosage sales of Sirtex’s product, SIR-Spheres, for the period July to October 2016, which was not generally available.

If that information had been widely disclosed it was argued a reasonable person would have expected it to have a material downward effect on the price or value of Sirtex’s shares.

In September 2018, Mr Wong was charged with one count of insider trading under the Corporations Act.