India’s Securities and Exchange Board (Sebi) imposed sanctions on Reliance Industries (RIL), its president and managing director Mukesh Ambani, and two other entities on Friday for alleged manipulative trading of the shares of the former Reliance Petroleum (RPL) in November. 2007.
Fines of Rs 25 million and Rs 15 million have been imposed on RIL and Ambani, respectively. Furthermore, Navi Mumbai SEZ has been asked to pay a fine of Rs 20 crore, and Mumbai SEZ has been ordered to pay Rs 10 crore.
The case concerns the sale and purchase of RPL shares in the cash and futures segments in November 2007.
This followed RIL’s decision in March 2007 to sell 4.1% of its stake in RPL, a publicly traded subsidiary that later merged with RIL in 2009.
In a 95-page order, Sebi adjudication officer BJ Dilip said that any manipulation in the volume or price of securities always erodes investor confidence in the market when investors are on the receiving end of the securities. market manipulators.
“In the present case, general investors were unaware that the entity behind the aforementioned F&O segment transactions was RIL. The execution of the … fraudulent operations affected the price of the RPL securities both in cash and in the F&O segments and harmed the interests of other investors, ”it said in the order.
While noting that the execution of manipulative operations affects the price discovery system itself, the adjudicating official said: “I am of the opinion that such manipulative acts should be dealt with severely to deter manipulative activities in the capital markets.” .
On March 24, 2017, Sebi had ordered RIL and some other entities to return more than Rs 447 million in the RPL case. In November 2020, the Securities Appeal Court (SAT) dismissed the company’s appeal against the order.
At the time, RIL had said it would challenge the court order in the Supreme Court.
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