Hatsun Agro Issues Caution Letter To CFO After 'Inadvertent' Leak Of Q3 Results On WhatsApp

Hatsun Agro Product Ltd. issued a caution letter to Chief Financial Officer H Ramachandran after he inadvertently disclosed draft third quarter financial results on his personal Whatsapp status last week.

The status was seen by around 19 people in his contact list including some insiders of the company, before he deleted it within an hour's time from his phone. That happened on Jan. 5.

"We have issued a caution letter advising the CFO to exercise greater care and vigilance in handling such information and directing strict adherence to regulatory requirements to prevent recurrence," the company said in an exchange filing.

The CFO leads the company's financial strategy, overseeing all financial activities, analysis, reporting to the board.

The Company Secretary and Compliance Officer compiled the list of persons who viewed the WhatsApp Status including their PAN details from the CFO and updated their details in the list of designated persons maintained in the Structured Digital Database (SDD).

Accordingly, the trading window was immediately closed for all the persons who were exposed to the Unpublished Price Sensitive Information (UPSI) and their PAN was also frozen at the NSDL Issuer Services Portal, Hatsun Agro said.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India has strict insider trading rules under the Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements Regulations, 2015. Such rules mandate that company insiders can't trade or communicate UPSI to make unfair gains in the securities market.

An Insider Trading Investigation Committee (ITIC), comprising of Vice Chairman C Sathyan, Managing Director J Shanmuga Priyan, and Company Secretary and Compliance Officer C Subramaniam, was constituted on Jan. 6. All the actions taken, including the list of identified persons and the detailed timeline of events, have been documented by the Committee for compliance and monitoring purposes, the company said.

Shares of Hatsun Agro settled 1.7% lower at Rs 930.55 on the BSE, ahead of the disclosure, compared to a 0.3% fall in the benchmark Sensex. The board will consider and approve the December quarter results on Jan. 19.