What happened
From February 2021 to May 2022, four individuals used 26 accounts in the names of 15 investors to trade PSH shares of NSH Petro. Vietnam's State Securities Commission said the activity created artificial supply and demand in the stock.
During one stretch, the group joined 135 of 140 sessions, placed 12,860 buy orders for 91.5 million shares and 7,587 sell orders for 109.7 million shares. Intra-group matching later totaled more than VND1.4 trillion when exchange and negotiated trades were combined.
In May 2024, the SSC fined each of the four VND1.5 billion. TheInvestors report also noted that Mai Huu Phuc, one of the sanctioned people, was the son of NSH Petro chairman Mai Van Huy and had been dismissed as deputy general director days earlier.
What it cost
Four people were fined VND1.5B each; three received 2-year trading bans and one received a 3-year ban from securities trading and posts.
Why it happened
The trading group used many accounts, but the order flow was still concentrated enough for the regulator to trace.
Internal matching created the appearance of active market demand without independent investors behind much of the volume.
The link to a senior insider's family raised the governance temperature around what might otherwise look like outside trading.
The company was already under financial pressure, so trust in the equity story mattered more, not less.
The lesson
Thinly controlled volume is not liquidity. When a few accounts dominate the tape, market support can become evidence of manipulation.
Aftermath
The four sanctioned traders were barred from trading or holding securities-market posts for two to three years. Vietnamese reports said PSH fell to its floor price after the announcement, while NSH Petro was also managing bond pressure, tax enforcement and plans for a large private placement.
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