The Securities and Exchange Commission is set to take legal actions against some large investors for their involvement in market manipulation in January, said officials of the capital market watchdog.
'Based on the probe report and the directive of the finance ministry, we have conducted investigation into the roles of some big market players in the stocks debacle of January,' said SEC member Helal Uddin Nizami.
He said the commission had finalised its preparations for filing cases against a number of investors including
Sayed Sirajuddoula and his wife Rasheda Akter for bulk and serial trading of shares.
For example, in the statement of fact prepared for the case to be lodged against Sirajuddoula and Rasheda Akter, the equities market regulator has accused them of making artificial active trading of Peoples Leasing shares, which caused the price of the scrip to shoot up abnormally.
According to the SEC statement, they had pushed the price of Peoples Leasing shares up by trading 2,22,700 shares of the company between themselves from June 30 to November 4, 2010. After each of the Peoples Leasing shares had been split into 10, reducing its face value from Tk 100 to Tk 10, the two accused investors sold their holdings and booked a hefty profit.
The commission, in line with a recommendation made by the probe committee, is also set to take departmental actions against an SEC member of that time.
Helal Uddin said the commission sent an investigation report to the finance ministry against former SEC member Mansur Alam. 'We have sent an enquiry report to the finance ministry for taking action against Mansur Alam.'
The commission also formed a two-member committee to investigate into the allegations against SEC executive directors Anwarul Kabir Bhuiyan and ATM Tariquzzaman, he said.
Helal Uddin said, 'The commission finalised the terms of reference of the enquiry committee, which will start working soon.'
The probe committee formed earlier, however, failed to specify any charge of being involved in the stock market scam against Tariquzzaman.
After the relentless fall in share prices in December to January last, the government formed a high-powered probe committee, headed by Khondoker Ibrahim Khaled, to investigate into the market crash.
The three-member committee, after conducting a three-month investigation, submitted the report to the government with a number of case studies of market manipulation. The committee also placed a 25-point recommendation including conducting further enquiries about the people suspected to be involved in market manipulation, reconstructing the SEC, and terminating some of its officials including the sitting chairman Ziaul Haque Kahondker.
Finance minister AMA Muhith, while making the report public, said the government would take the recommendations into consideration and specified some term-by-term goals to bring back stability in the capital market.
Source : New Age
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