Police to charge stock market rumourmongers

Police will charge four people with spreading the rumours about the health of His Majesty the King which led to the stock sell-off earlier this month, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said on Thursday.

"I heard that they will charge four people, but they have not informed me of their names yet," Mr Abhisit said. "Authorities will go ahead with the charges when they have enough information."

He did not know whether any politicians or businessmen were involved.

The rumours led to a stock sell-off on Oct 14 and 15. The SET index plunged about seven per cent.

 Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said it was seeking trading information from two foreign brokerage houses.

Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij said his ministry will issue new regulations on the trading of shares by finance officials to promote good governance.

Mr Korn said the new regulations would initially apply to high-ranking officials and their families members. Eventually they would cover all officials in the ministry.

The new regulations would effect at the beginning of next year, and later be introduced in other state agencies, he said.

The minister said this would help prevent unsubstantiated rumours from spreading and causing panic selling of shares.

"The Finance Ministry will now have to revise its role and reform itself first, as it has the most internal sources of information. It is necessary to have rules to supervise trading activities of government officials," Mr Korn said.

He said there would also be changes in the regulations for board members of state enterprises, since many government officials were also board members.

Changes to rules will prevent conflicts of interest, he said.

"I still believe that it is important for government officials to be on the boards of state enterprises, but their priority should be to protect national interests," he said.