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Three Arrows Founders Hit With 9-Year Trading Ban in Singapore

MAS has banned the Three Arrows Capital founders from managing, directing, or being a shareholder of any registered capital markets services firm in Singapore.

Singapore’s financial regulator has issued a nine-year prohibition order against the founders of Three Arrows Capital, which prohibits them from operating in the country’s regulated financial services industry.

Su Zhu and Kyle Davies will be prohibited from performing any regulated activity and from taking part in the management of, acting as a director of, or becoming a substantial shareholder, of any capital market services firm, the release says.

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MAS says the prohibition order comes after the regulator began investigating Three Arrows Capital after it reprimanded the fund in June 2022 for providing false information to the public and the role Zhu and Davies played in Three Arrows’ Singapore and British Virgin Island entities.

The regulator says that Three Arrows’ failed to notify MAS of the appointment of a new fund manager, falsely claimed to MAS that this manager wasn’t conducting regulated activities, and failed to have in place an appropriate risk management framework.

“Senior management of fund managers are required to implement robust risk management measures to protect the interest of investors,” Loo Siew Yee, Assistant Managing Director of Policy, Payments & Financial Crime said in a release. “MAS takes a serious view of Mr. Zhu’s and Mr. Davies’ flagrant disregard of MAS’ regulatory requirements and dereliction of their directors’ duties. MAS will take action to weed out senior managers who commit such misconduct.”

In August, Zhu and Davies’ latest venture, crypto bankruptcy claims exchange OPNX, was fined nearly $2.8 million by Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA).

The fine remains unpaid, according to a copy of the notice retrieved on Sept. 14.

OPNX is registered in Seychelles.

UPDATE (Sept. 14, 04:12 UTC): Adds details and background.

Sam Reynolds

Sam Reynolds is a senior reporter based in Asia. Sam was part of the CoinDesk team that won the 2023 Gerald Loeb award in the breaking news category for coverage of FTX's collapse. Prior to CoinDesk, he was a reporter with Blockworks and a semiconductor analyst with IDC.

Sam Reynolds