The Supreme Court verdict spells it out clearly - Thaksin was inept at enriching himself and family, and he failed to learn the proper lessons from older, wiser, predecessors:
Bloomberg:
Shin shares gained 121 percent from when Thaksin took office on Feb. 9, 2001, to when his family sold the company on Jan. 23, 2006, compared with a 128 percent gain in the benchmark SET index, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Siam Cement Pcl, Thailand’s fourth-biggest company, which is controlled by the monarchy’s investment arm, gained 717 percent in that time.
“Whether Thaksin used his influence to benefit his companies is for the courts to decide,” said Vikas Kawatra, head of institutional broking at Kim Eng Securities (Thailand) Pcl, the nation’s biggest brokerage by trading volume. “We analyze the stocks on fundamentals and price movements and based on past performance versus the SET it appears his companies performed no better than others in the benchmark.”
Apart from the courts attempt to legitimize the coup, I am basically happy with the financial aspects of the verdict as it (purportedly) returns to the Thaksin clan an amount that in my view, considering the totality of their business lives, they 'might' have 'earned' legitimately.
In my dream world, the verdict will encourage investigative research by journalists, and activists, into all the business dealings of public office holders, not only politicians, but police, military, bureaucrats and other office holders (both elected, and appointed:)
Update: Or I should say I would be happy with the verdict if I knew the precedents would be consistently applied to all.
There also seems to be considerable doubt about whether anything will actually be returned to the clan, and perhaps this verdict was just a stalling measure to provide a gloss of 'fairness' when he real intention is to grab the remainder with other court actions over time.
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