The Finance Ministry will investigate whether it was unethical for two of its senior executives to receive shares offered to them by SET-listed Bangchak Corporation Plc (BCP) under the company's employee stock ownership plan (Esop), said a ministry source who requested anonymity.
The source added that the ministry's permanent secretary Krisada Chinavicharana has ordered Treasury Department director-general Chamroen Phothiyod and the Comptroller General's Department's director-general Kulaya Tantitemit to make written reports of their share transactions and submit them to the ministry.
Mr Chamroen remains on Bangchak's board while Ms Kulaya has resigned from the board.
The ministry will proceed further if it found irregularities in the case, the source added.
The ministry has stipulated ethical guidlines to prevent executives from a conflict of interest.
According to Section 9 of the guidlines, executives who are appointed by the ministry to sit on the boards of state enterprises or companies and receive shares from such organisations have to inform the ministry within 15 days of the date when they were informed by such organisations about the share offering.
If the ministry rules that such shares are the shares of the organisations the ministry has invested in to support the government's related investment policies, the executives will not be able to receive them and will have to transfer their share ownership right to the ministry.
If the ministry rules that the shares are not related to the government's investment policies, then the executives can exercise their right regarding the shares.
The ministry owned 4.76% in Bangchak as of September 2022.
The source added that, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission, during the time he spent as a Banchak board member, Mr Chamroen bought 600,000 Banchak shares, of which half were shares offered by the firm via its Esop, while the rest he acquired independently. He later sold 150,000 of the total number of shares.
Mr Chamroen's share transactions took place during Bangchak's plan to acquire shares in Esso Thailand. Both firms started talks on the deal in September 2022.
Ms Kulaya was allocated 300,000 shares from Bangchak's Esop and she sold them all immediately after she purchased them. She is not currently a Banchak director on behalf of the ministry. Her resignation from the post took effect in January 2023.
Mr Chamroen said he always updated the ministry about his Bangchak share transactions. He is gathering related information and will submit it to Mr Krisada as soon as possible, he said.
Ms Kulaya said earlier that she received the Bangchak shares according to the firm's share allocation process and in line with the board's resolution to grant 18 million shares to board members and employees as a reward. She exercised the right to buy shares according to her right and had no intention of owning the shares.
She said she had informed the ministry and the stock exchange about the shares she obtained from Bangchak according to the related procedures.
