The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Wednesday barred Future Group promoter and CEO Kishore Biyani from accessing the securities market for a year and trading in the shares of Future Retail Ltd (FRL) for two years on the grounds of alleged insider trading in FRL shares between March and April, 2017.
Sebi’s order comes after the Delhi high court directed FRL to maintain status quo on the Rs 24,713-crore deal with Reliance Retail.
However, the market regulator indicated that its order will not come in the way of the scheme of arrangement between various Future group companies and Reliance Retail.
“Debarment/restraint/freeze imposed under this order shall not apply to those existing holding of securities of such debarred entities, in respect of which any scheme of arrangement under Section 230-232 of the Companies Act, 2013, is approved by NCLT, requiring extinguishment of such securities and/or receipt of other securities in lieu of such securities,” Sebi said.
Wednesday’s order came after Sebi conducted an investigation into the scrip of FRL to ascertain whether certain persons or entities had traded in the scrip between March 10 and April 20, 2017, on the basis of unpublished price sensitive information (UPSI), breaking the Sebi Act, 1992 read with the Sebi (Prohibition of Insider Trading) Regulations, 2015.
The market regulator added that FRL had announced on April 20, 2017 during market hours about a composite scheme of arrangement among FRL, Bluerock eServices Pvt Ltd and Praxis Home Retail Pvt Ltd and their respective shareholders.
According to Sebi, this scheme of arrangement which resulted in the demerger of certain businesses of FRL qualified as UPSI prior to its announcement on April 2017.
Sebi’s investigation showed that the composite scheme had come into existence on March 10, 2017, as preliminary discussions for the scheme were carried out on this date. Subsequently, a team was also created by FRL on March 14, 2017 to work on this scheme. Thus the period of UPSI was identified as March 10- April 20, 2017.
