Thailand’s Ministry of Finance announced that the Cabinet approved in principle a draft emergency decree to amend the Securities and Exchange Act as a package to strengthen corporate governance oversight and legal enforcement in the capital market, with a focus on faster investor protection and preventing wider economic and social harm. The draft would tighten supervision of short selling by requiring investor compliance with prescribed conditions including being able to evidence securities borrowing before order submission, obliging overseas service providers to report beneficial ownership information to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and introducing criminal penalties for breaches. It would also strengthen the approval, conduct and accountability framework for key capital market professionals and related overseas service providers, including criminal penalties for deficient performance and administrative fines and sanctions such as suspension and withdrawal of approval. Other measures would expand bondholders’ representative rights across rehabilitation and bankruptcy proceedings, require reporting of security encumbrances to the SEC with penalties for non-compliance and allow public disclosure, introduce preventive measures to restrain potentially harmful transactions backed by SEC investigative and asset seizure or freezing powers, and give SEC officials authority to investigate and inquire into “high impact” cases that could severely affect market confidence or the national economy.

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