The Supreme Court has sentenced Amaret Sila-On, a former commerce minister, to two years in jail, suspended for three years, and a 20,000-baht fine for malfeasance involving auctions of bad assets following the 1997 financial crisis.
Amaret, in his capacity as chairman of the Financial Sector Restructuring Authority (FRA), was found guilty under the 1959 act on liabilities of state employees.
The same sentence was given to Vicharat Vichitvadakan, the former FRA secretary-general.
The Supreme Court upheld the sentence of the Criminal Court in 2012. In 2014, the Appeals Court acquitted both.
According to the Supreme Court's ruling read at the Criminal Court in Bangkok on Friday, Amaret, 83, and Vicharat, 69, had let Lehman Brothers Holding have an advantage in its bid for assets from 56 closed financial institutions as Lehman Brothers (Thailand) Co, one of its subsidiaries, was the FRA's adviser.
Lehman Brothers Holding won the bid for 11.5 billion baht against the original value of 24.62 billion baht.
The FRA also postponed the auction from July 30 to Aug 13, 1998, allowing Lehman Brothers Holding time to set up the Global Thai Property Fund to buy the assets on its behalf so it did not need to pay taxes.
As well, the court found Lehman Brothers Holding failed to seal the purchase deal and pay 20%, or 2.3 billion baht, of the price within seven days after the contest as originally required. Instead, the FRA allowed the property fund to seal the deal although it was not listed as a contender.
The Criminal Court acquitted other defendants: Lehman Brothers Holdings, Lehman Brothers (Thailand), the property fund and One Asset Management Ltd which registered the fund as there was no evidence of their wrongdoing.
Amaret, a six-time former commerce minister, said at the court that he had worked in the best interest of the public but in return he was punished. He said he would tell his grandchildren to stay away from public service or think very carefully before doing so because they might end up paying dearly for it.
The FRA was a body set up after the 1997 financial crisis to clear bad loans and assets from financial institutions.
The Bank of Thailand was forced to float the baht on July 2, 1997 after it had used up foreign reserves to defend the local currency and lost the battle with foreign exchange speculators.
By Oct 24, 1997 the baht depreciated by 60% against the US dollar, bankrupting many Thai companies, that had borrowed extensively in foreign currencies, especially the dollar, during the pre-1997 economic boom.
Banks were therefore saddled with bad debts and had to sell bad assets pledged to them to the FRA, which in turn auctioned them off for 22% of the original prices on average.