The Supreme Court yesterday sentenced the owner of Pongphet market to a year in jail for forging 1.3 billion baht in promissory notes, contributing to a bank failure that fuelled the 1997 financial crisis.
The court initially sentenced Pongpairot Ratchatasap, 67, managing director of Pongphet Land Co, to two years in prison but the sentence was reduced by half because he pleaded guilty and confessed.
Mr Pongpairot forged the signatures of six family members as guarantors of four promissory notes totalling 1.32 billion baht on Dec 25, 1997. He then sold the co-signed notes to the since-failed First Bangkok City Bank, contributing to the failure of the financial system in the 1997 economic crisis. In 2009, police charged him with forgery and the use of fraudulent promissory notes. The court subsequently convicted and sentenced him to six years imprisonment, before reducing it to three years.
Mr Pongpairot also filed an appeal, which was rejected in August 2013 by the Appeal Court, which upheld the sentence on the grounds that if he had not used false pretenses, the bank would not have granted him the money for his property business.