Sebi slaps penalty of Rs 77 lakh on 16 entities

Capital market regulator Sebi today slapped a total penalty of Rs 77 lakh on 16 entities including one stock broker for indulging in fraudulent trades in shares of LGS Global Ltd (now known as Ybrant Digital Ltd).
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has also imposed a penalty of Rs 5 lakh each on 15 indivuduals, while it has levied Rs 2 lakh fine on brokerage firm Arcadia Share & Stock Brokers.
In an order today, the market regulator said that the 15 indivuduals "by trading amongst themselves had indulged in synchronised trades on numerous occasions, resulting in no change of beneficial ownership thereby, created artificial volume in the scrip of LGS Global Ltd which gave a false and misleading appearance of trading in the said scrip".

It also noted that most of the individuals "had entered into self trades and inflated the volumes in the market thereby, giving a false and misleading appearance of trading in the scrip of LGS Global Ltd".
In the case of Arcadia, Sebi found that the broker "by executing fictitious trades, in the nature of self and synchronised trades, on behalf of its clients has violated the ...The Broker Regulations".
The case relates to Sebi probe into the irregularity in the trading in the shares of LGS Global during the period from February 10, 2009 to May 7, 2010.
It was observed that the price of the scrip had unusually increased from Rs 20.15 to Rs 133.60.

Sebi said the individuals penalised are -- Bharat Shantilal Thakkar, Bipin Jayant Thaker, Bharat G Vaghela, Chirag Rajnikant Jariwala, Bhavesh Pabari, Prem Mohanlal Parikh, Hemant Madhusudan Sheth, Mala Hemant Sheth, Vivek Kishanpal Samant, Ankit Sanchaniya, Gaurang Ajit Seth, Ketan Babulal Shah, Vasudev Ramchandra Kamat, Jigar Praful Ghoghari and Vipul Hiralal Shah.