Sebi penalises compliance officer of Essar Shipping

Markets regulator Sebi on Wednesday levied monetary fine on the compliance officer of Essar Shipping Ltd for failing to administer the code of conduct as prescribed under insider trading norms.

Sebi has slapped a fine of Rs 1 lakh on Awaneesh Srivastava, the compliance officer.

The order follows an investigation carried out between July-August 2017.

The firm had made certain announcement on exchanges pertaining to conversion of FCCBs which was later withdrawn by the firm.

Sebi found that the period from July 31, 2017 to August 24, 2017 was period of UPSI (unpublished price sensitive information).

However, the trading window was not closed during the UPSI period.

Sebi noted that the compliance officer of the company failed to administer the code of conduct and failed to determine the trading window closure when the designated persons or class of designated person can reasonably be expected to have possession of UPSI.

Thus, he violated the code of conduct as prescribed under minimum standard of code of conduct to regulate, monitor and report trading by insiders under the Prohibition of Insider Trading norms.

''Though no trades took place during the window closure period, but it was the responsibility of the Compliance Officer to close the trading window, which the Noticee failed to do so,'' Sebi said.

Noticee refers to Srivastava.

''The duty weighs even more on a person like Compliance Officer, who is conferred upon with key responsibilities in a company and hence the violation by the Noticee needs to be viewed seriously,'' the regulator added.

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