Pheim Asset Management Sdn. and its Chief Executive Officer Tan Chong Koay, appealed a Singapore High Court ruling that they’d manipulated the shares of a listed company in the country’s first civil stock-rigging lawsuit.

“If left to stand, the decision would either serve to curtail genuine market activity by the timorous or to set a penal trap for the unwary,” they said in their appeal filed Dec 21 at the Singapore High Court.

Tan and Pheim bought almost 90% of the traded shares of United Envirotech from Dec 29 to Dec 31, 2004. The shares rose 17% over the three trading days and helped raise the net asset value of the fund management firm’s accounts, triggering bonuses of $50,790 ($38,866) and a management fee of $115. Justice Lai Siu Chiu said the gain sought by Pheim and Tan wasn’t monetary, in ruling they manipulated the stock.

Tan and his Malaysian fund management company were fined $250,000 each. The Monetary Authority of Singapore sought a fine of $1 million for each.

Pheim “is a value investor,” the company and Tan said in their appeal. “Pheim is also a contrarian investor -- buying when others are selling and selling when others are buying.”

The Monetary Authority has no evidence to prove Pheim and Tan had any other intention but to buy undervalued shares, they said in the 212 pages of court documents filed to back the appeal.

“There was in fact no other intention,” they said.