Ola Electric Likely In SEBI Crosshairs Over Alleged Insider Trading

India’s market regulator is said to be looking into Ola Electric Mobility Ltd. on multiple counts, in increased scrutiny of India’s former No.1 electric two-wheeler maker.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India is looking into Ola Electric on two counts of insider trading between October and December 2024, at least three people aware of the matter told NDTV Profit. The company’s related-party transactions may also be under the SEBI scanner, as is its sales mismatch in February.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether SEBI has contacted Ola Electric over the issues. The people requested anonymity as the conversations are private.

To be sure, trading by insiders itself isn’t a crime, but trading on material non-public information is.

During October-December 2024, Ola Electric’s Vice President Claudio Zizzo, who heads the company’s electricals and electronics division, conducted at least two day trades on dates when founder billionaire Bhavish Aggarawal tweeted about business developments.

At 2:46 pm on 26 November 2024, Aggarwal tweeted about the launch of the Ola S1 Z and Gig range of electric scooters, “starting at just Rs 39,000”, but the stock exchanges were informed only after market hours at 5:03 pm. Ola Electric ended the trading session 5.52% higher at Rs 73.42 apiece.

On the same day, Zizzo picked up 62,205 shares worth Rs 54,72,534.6 at Rs 87.97 apiece. He offloaded nearly all of these shares over the next three days. On 27 November, the stock hit the upper circuit of 20%.

Apart from this, Zizzo has made only four other buy-sell transactions since Ola Electric’s listing on 9 August 2024.

“For insider trading, it has to be that only he (Zizzo) possessed some information that was price sensitive, that only he benefited from the trades. The new launches and expansion plans may not indicate price-sensitive information,” Shriram Subramanian, founder and managing director at InGovern Research Services Pvt. Ltd.

“However, the nature of the trades of buying and selling huge quantities of shares within a few days seems strange and should be investigated by SEBI.”

Emails sent to SEBI and Ola Electric on 30 April 2025 remained unanswered when this story was first published on Friday. However, upon publishing of this story, Ola Electric told the stock exchanges that the article contains factual inaccuracies that could potentially harm its reputation.

According to the company, Zizzo holds ESOPs. His trades, as mentioned in the story, “were routine transactions involving shares acquired through exercising these ESOPs and not through the open market purchase”.

To be sure, SEBI has previously pulled up Ola Electric regarding timely disclosures, incidentally over Aggarwal’s tweet on expansion plans mentioned earlier in the story.

On 7 January, the Securities and Exchange Board of India sent an administrative warning over email to Ola Electric for violating various sections of the SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015, for not ensuring “equal, timely, cost-efficient access to relevant information for all investors”, according to an exchange filing.

“By failing to first disseminate the information on stock exchanges and instead announcing it on a social media platform, you have failed to provide equal and timely access to information for all investors,” SEBI had said in the warning letter to Ola Electric.