Midcap Crash: Sebi Revokes Orders Against 8 Entities

Sebi today revoked its orders that had barred eight entities from the capital markets in a matter related to sharp plunge in share prices of some mid-cap stocks including Parsvnath, Tulip Telecom and Pipavav Defence.

In an order, the regulator said that its probe into July 26, 2012 mid-cap crash, "could not establish anything adverse" against -- Ajit Kumar Jain, Cheminare Trade Comm, Umang Nemani, Gajria Jayna Precision Industries, Kuvam Plast, Passion System Solution, Ramkripa Securities and Manish Agarwal.

Giving the entities the "benefit of the doubt", the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said that "no further action is called for against these persons/ entities and the direction issued against these vide the interim order needs to be revoked".

The matter relates to a sharp plunge of 20-26 per cent in the shares of Parsvnath Developers, Pipavav Defence and Offshore Engineering, Tulip Telecom and Glodyne Technoserve on July 26, 2012 at the BSE and NSE.

Sebi said a sharp downward movement was noticed in the stocks of these companies between 0915 and 0949 hours on that day, although no major corporate announcements or price sensitive information was disclosed to the exchanges by these companies during previous 15 days.

On the basis of an analysis of the trading activity of the major clients at NSE and BSE in the companies stocks, it was noticed that certain clients were not only common across these scrips but were also trading on both the exchanges.

The preliminary probe showed that these traders were instrumental in pushing down the prices of the concerned stocks, as they were observed to be placing the sell orders below the best sell prices as well as the best buy prices available on various occasions.

Pending investigations, Sebi in August 2012 had issued interim orders restricting the eight entities along with others from the capital markets.