Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission: temporarily suspends the license of Li Sijia from Dongtai Securities for three months and two weeks.

The Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong has temporarily suspended the license of Li Sijia (female), the responsible person, core function supervisor, and director of Dongtai Securities Limited (Dongtai), for a period of three months and two weeks, from December 1, 2025, to March 14, 2026. The Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong disciplined Dongtai before taking the above disciplinary action, because the company committed misconduct between September 6, 2019, and February 18, 2020, involving the unauthorized sale of client securities and transfer of client funds. The Commission believes that Dongtai's misconduct can be attributed to Li, who as the responsible person and senior management member, neglected her duties at a critical time. The investigation by the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong found that Dongtai sold shares in a client account based on instructions from a fraudulent email address similar to that of an overseas client, and transferred the proceeds of the sales amounting to a total of $3,301,740 to three overseas bank accounts not designated by the client. In addition to the incorrect email address, there were other signs of possible misconduct, such as wire transfers being rejected by multiple banks, but Dongtai did not take action on these warning signs and continued to process fund transfers. The Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong found that Dongtai failed to ensure proper protection of client assets and did not have effective internal monitoring procedures in place to safeguard client assets from theft, fraud, and other misappropriation. In deciding to impose disciplinary action on Li, the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong took into account that Dongtai did not have sufficient internal monitoring measures to protect client assets. This was a serious deficiency as it could expose clients to the risk of substantial losses due to theft, fraud, and other misappropriation of assets; Li cooperated in addressing the concerns raised by the Commission; and Li did not have a record of receiving disciplinary action in the past. Public information shows that Dongtai has compensated the client involved in the incident and has taken remedial measures to strengthen its trading and execution procedures for client accounts to prevent similar incidents in the future. Additionally, Dongtai has appointed an independent review institution to review its internal monitoring measures for safeguarding client assets.