The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission prohibits former Goldman Sachs (Asia) trader Zheng Zhongsheng from re-entering the industry for six months.

The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission has banned former trader Zheng Zhongsheng (male) of Goldman Sachs (Asia) Limited and Goldman Sachs (Asia) Securities Limited (referred to as Goldman) from re-entering the industry for six months, from September 20, 2024 to March 19, 2025. An investigation found that Zheng issued erroneous trading instructions when buying shares of company X for a client on August 24, 2020. He mistakenly input 2,232,000 shares as 232,000 shares in the system, resulting in 2 million shares being underbought when executing the client's trading instructions. After the market closed on the same day, Zheng was reminded of the trading execution error, but he only reported the matter to the management and compliance department of Goldman Sachs four days later. The Securities and Futures Commission took disciplinary action after investigating the matter. The Securities and Futures Commission found that Zheng attempted to conceal the trading execution error through dishonest means by: Arranging convenient trades to buy the remaining 2 million shares, in order to fulfill the client's trading instructions; Making false statements to Goldman Sachs colleagues involved in executing the trades, claiming that he had obtained the client's consent for the transactions, which was not true; Recording the original trades at a lower price in the client's account, instead of the higher price from the convenient trades, making it harder for Goldman Sachs to detect the error. The Securities and Futures Commission deemed Zheng's actions to be a violation of the "Code of Conduct" and that he was not a suitable individual to hold a license. When deciding on the disciplinary action, the Securities and Futures Commission took into consideration all relevant factors, including: Zheng's misconduct was dishonest; Zheng did not benefit financially from his misconduct, nor did it result in any losses for clients; Zheng admitted to his misconduct and voluntarily reported the incident to the Securities and Futures Commission; Zheng expressed remorse for his actions; There is no record of Zheng receiving any disciplinary actions in the past.