Sebi levies Rs 30 lakh fine on 4 firms for fraudulent trading

Capital markets regulator Sebi has levied a total fine of Rs 30 lakh on four firms for carrying out fraudulent trading in the illiquid stock options segment of BSE.

The regulator has imposed a penalty of Rs 15 lakh on Remarkable Tracom Pvt Ltd, while Savasthi Investments Ltd, Reward Goods Pvt Ltd and Russel Towers Pvt Ltd have been fined Rs 5 lakh each.

Pursuant to an investigation carried out between April 2014 and September 2015, Sebi noted that the four firms were among the various entities that indulged in execution of reversal trades in the stock options segment of the bourse, thereby creating artificial volumes.

Reversal trades are those trades in which an entity reverses its buy or sell positions in a contract with the same counterparty during the same day. Such trades are considered non-genuine as they are not executed in normal course of trading and lack basic trading rationale.

In similarly worded orders, Sebi said the "trades were not normal and wide variation in prices of the trades in the same contract in a short time without any basis for such wide variation, all indicate that the trades executed by the Noticee were not genuine trades and being non genuine, created an appearance of artificial trading volumes in respective contracts."