Hi Kem
Thank you for your call on Friday evening
Just to keep you fully in the loop on what has been happening with the SEC, you should also be aware that after the article (fourth attachment) was published in the Big Chilli magazine in May 2015, a westerner who lives in Hong Kong, who we do not know, who does not know anyone at SEAC and has never been a client of ours, complained to the SEC about us, without any foundation.
Clearly this individual has an issue with the whole financial services industry and has complained about everyone he can find, his blog has since vanished presumably because another party has taken legal action regarding his libel.
We do not wish to become confrontational with the SEC, however, we believe that their adding us to the investor alert list is unfounded as you mentioned on Friday, therefore could you please ask them to remove our company name from this list? Especially as you feel this is an illegal act when no law has been breached.
Because of this complaint we received the attached letter (first attachment) from the SEC, who also sent a very similar letter to Apollo MAM and Newport Private Wealth (last attachment). I have also attached their draft responses to these letters FYI.
Any remuneration from these companies has been earned and paid offshore, not in Thailand, which is where we believe Khun Wanchai Sittipolkul (WS) may have made an incorrect assumption in our meeting at the SEC last Wednesday.
In your clarification of our position to the SEC, where as there is no law covering our business model, therefore they cannot instruct us to stop this practice, could we ask for a letter from the SEC to this effect? I should add at this point that WS stated that if the individual (client) was in Thailand then it was under their remit, however, I believe that is only the case if we were also paid in Thailand. A grey area perhaps?
The SEC also told us to remove all references to investments from our website, must we do this?
Please could you also ask them to also write to Newport PW and Apollo stating that this model is not under their current jurisdiction.
It should be appreciated that SEAC have on two occasions in the past written directly to the SEC of Thailand requesting guidance on any licenses and examinations to satisfy them. We re-iterate our wish to work in conjunction with the SEC to establish standards that would ensure all Independent Financial Advisors who conduct business in Thailand do so in a professional and ethical level. We take this opportunity to restate that offer.
Finally at the SEC meeting, we also provided the SEC with 2 documents from Ardan International, another offshore service provider, in an attempt to explain our business model, and also literature from Momentum, an offshore pensions specialist. Could you please also request that they do not contact these companies with potentially incorrect and therefore libelous information regarding SEAC?
Thank you once again for all your help in this matter. Please do not hesitate to call me if you have any questions regarding this matter.
Best Regards