Reply #116: Curiosity of the Day: Ex-Gemstar exec to pay $1.3 mln to settle with SEC

[UpInArms]

http://today.reuters.com/investing/financeArticle.aspx?type=bondsNews&storyID=2006-02-07T191830Z_01_WAT004808_RTRIDST_0_MEDIA-GEMSTAR-SEC-URGENT.XML

WASHINGTON, Feb 7 (Reuters) - The former co-president and chief operating officer of Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc. (GMST.O: Quote, Profile, Research) agreed to pay more than $1.3 million to settle U.S. regulatory charges relating to a scheme to fraudulently inflate company revenues, authorities said on Tuesday.

Elsie Leung, 59, agreed to the fine and a permanent ban from serving as an officer or director of a public company, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The SEC alleged that Gemstar overstated revenues by at least $248 million between June 1999 and September 2002.

Okay - here the curiosity:

Is Elsie Leung any relation to Katrina Leung?

Is it this Elsie Leung?

Have you read about Hong Kong's recent collapse? The slump in the economy? Riots and looting? An end to trade? No more international contacts or travel? Didn't think so. But some in the Government think it could happen, and soon.

Before we get to that, the Hong Kong Government's scurrying off to Beijing for an interpretation of the Basic Law to sort out the Chief Executive mess has lead to some convoluted justifications and flip flops. The Don has said we need to prevent chaos in Hong Kong.

But most disturbing is Elsie Leung, the Secretary for Justice, and her opinion in today's SCMP (reproduced below). Hong Kong's top legal official is basically saying the court system is too slow and unable to handle something of such import. They want to take the short-cut she says is open to the Government and go straight to Beijing. It doesn't say much for her faith in Hong Kong's courts.

Why should this decision be rushed when every other Hong Konger has to wait for the slow wheels of justice to turn? If courts are too slow then fix that.

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Here's the scoop on Katrina Leung (in case you don't know):



There are certain ironies, cognitive disconnects, floating up from the arrest in Los Angeles on spying charges on April 18 of Katrina Leung, a Chinese-born socialite and fundraiser for the Republican Party. Leung is being held without bail on charges that she had been a Chinese spy and double agent for more than 20 years and had slept with two of her Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) handlers - one of whom warned the other that she was a spy - while remaining faithfully married to her husband, Kam, a pharmaceutical distributor.

"I love my wife, Katrina Leung, very much," Dr Kam Leung told reporters outside the Los Angeles area courthouse where she was charged. "We all know that she has high ideals and was working for this country. We look forward to welcoming her home very soon."

The Leung story has all the knobs and switches of a classic spy drama. She is said to have had two code names - one from each side. She was allegedly assigned the name "Luo Zhongshan" by Zhu Qizhen, the Chinese ambassador to the United States, for her Chinese handlers at the Chinese Ministry of State Security. She was known as "Parlor Maid" to her US handlers, James J Smith, a 30-year veteran of the FBI, and William Cleveland, Smith's superior. Both are also said to have been her paramours.

Behind the headlines, there is plenty of discomfiture all around. It is yet another monumental embarrassment for the FBI and the Republican Party in the United States, whose leaders for years delivered blistering accusations of treason against the Democratic administration of president Bill Clinton for allegedly giving away state and military secrets to the Chinese.

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Hmmmmm.... Always more questions than answers :eyes: