Sebi fines Sunciti Rs 2 cr for disclosure norm violations

Capital markets watchdog Sebi today imposed a penalty of Rs 2 crore on Sunciti Financial Services for failing to make disclosures regarding a change in its shareholding within the required timeline.
Sunciti, one of the promoters of Maharashtra Polybutenes, held 42.24 per cent stake as on February 16, 2009. It pared its holding to 35.82 per cent on February 17 of the same year and again to 29.41 per cent on August 17, 2009.
Sunciti was required to make a disclosure about this change in shareholding on both occasions within two days of such modifications.
According to Sebi, Sunciti had wrongly made the disclosure in Form D, but not in Form C as prescribed under Prohibition of Insider Trading regulations. The disclosure did not contain necessary details such as PAN number, shareholding prior to acquisition/sale as required in the Form C.

"Thus, the disclosure by the noticee (Sunciti) sans the important information as required under Form C was not in compliance with... PIT regulations and can be considered as no disclosure in the eye of the law. It misses out on important parameters," Sebi said in an order.
"The noticee has admitted that the disclosure was not in terms of the prescribed regulations. Hence, it has to be treated as a case of 'no disclosure' for the aforesaid reasons," it added.

"By failure to make disclosures, the investors were deprived of the correct information at the relevant point of time. The default by the noticee is repetitive in nature as it is on two occasions."

In a separate order, Sebi has imposed a fine of Rs 5 lakh on R M Shares Trading Pvt Ltd for indulging in 'illegal and fictitious' trading in the scrips of Onelife Capital Advisors.
A probe by Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) found that R M Shares Trading executed self-trades in Onelife Capital Advisors for 89,901 shares on BSE and for 75,377 shares on NSE in October 2011.
"The noticee (R M Shares Trading) has executed trades after trades on both the exchanges, which are self-trades. Further, the same is repeated on the two subsequent days on both the exchanges. The number of self-trades on the first day itself was alarmingly high and the noticee has not taken any corrective action on the succeeding two days," Sebi noted.

The proportion of self-trades in terms of quantity of shares traded to overall trades of R M Shares Trading on first and second days is 4-6 per cent on both the exchanges, which is "unacceptable".
"The noticee had indulged in entering in self-trades which are illegal, fictitious and reprehensible and are the trades where beneficial ownership is not transferred... And thereby has violated the provisions of PFUTP (Prohibition of Fraudulent and Unfair Trade Practices) Regulations," it said.