Ola Electric Gets SEBI Warning Letter Over Timely Disclosures

India's market regulator has pulled over Ola Electric Mobility Ltd. for announcing its expansion plans on social media first and not on the exchanges.

The warning doesn't have any material impact on financials, though.

On Jan. 7, 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 said in the warning letter to Ola Electric.

At 9:58 a.m. on Dec. 2, Ola Electric's billionaire founder Bhavish Aggarwal posted a video on X (formerly Twitter) announcing the company's plans to expand its sales network four-fold by Dec. 20. The Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange were informed of the same at 1:36 p.m. and 1:41 p.m., respectively.

The actual expansion, however, happened on Dec. 25. 

“The above violations have been viewed very seriously,” SEBI said in its warning letter. “You are hereby warned and advised to be careful in the future and to improve your compliance standards to avoid recurrence of such instances, failing which appropriate enforcement action may be initiated…”

On Tuesday, Ola Electric shares rose 1.54% to Rs 79.16 apiece on the BSE even as the benchmark Sensex ended the day 0.30% higher at 78,199.11 points.