The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Wednesday joined the fight against bad loans by providing several relaxations to the rules of share acquisitions in the case of distressed companies.

The market regulator said an investor gaining control of a stressed company in the listed space would not have to make an open offer. Also, Sebi’s pricing formula for acquisition of shares would not be applicable in such cases.

Markets regulator Sebi will engage a forensic auditor for its ongoing probe into the NSE co- location case to ascertain whether brokers made unfair gains in connivance with the exchange officials. The watchdog has already issued show-cause notices to the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and several of its current and former executives as part of its investigation into alleged lapses in high-frequency trading offered through NSE’s co- location facility.

Markets regulator Sebi is likely to amend some existing regulations to ease the insolvency process initiated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and other lenders against companies with high debt.

According to sources, Sebi is planning to reduce the timeline for completion of takeover from six months to 30 days for acquirers in the case of insolvency proceedings. Price discovery and disclosure-related rules in such takeovers are also expected to be relaxed.

The capital markets regulator, the Securities and Exchange of India (Sebi), is in the process of appointing a forensic auditor to ascertain if brokers and their clients made any profit by gaining preferential access to the colocation (colo) facility of the National Stock Exchange (NSE).

Although Sebi and auditor Deloitte have established the trading systems at the NSE’s colo facility were prone to manipulation, so far, they have not been able find any proof of entities — a part of the ecosystem — making any monetary gain. Sebi’s latest move could be critical in determining the finality of the case, which the regulator has been probing since 2015.

Markets regulator Sebi today disposed of a case against Indiabulls Mutual Fund in a matter related to alleged procedural lapses in declaration and distribution of dividend.

It was alleged that Indiabulls MF did not comply with dividend declaration and distribution procedure. It allegedly did not seek trustee approval and addendum was not published for declaring the dividend at four instances.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) will complete its investigation into complaints against Financial Technologies India Limited (FTIL, now 63 Moons) and several other entities associated with it by the end of next month.

In an order passed earlier this week, the bench of RM Sawant and Sadhana S Jadhav of the Bombay High Court said that the market regulator has agreed to complete the investigation "latest by 31/07/2017" and submit the findings to the court in the next hearing. The regulator has also submitted another report in a sealed cover to the court in compliance with its directions in December.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has issued a circular allowing commodity exchanges to launch options trading in commodities. Initially, an exchange can launch options in only one commodity and the position limits for options will be double that of the respective futures contract. The settlement of commodity options will be complex as they become futures contracts on settlement. This mechanism has been introduced to allow option-holders to give or take delivery, which is not possible in the current legal framework.

Regulator Sebi today barred Shreebhumi Constructions and its directors from the capital market for not complying with public issue norms. A probe by Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) found that the company had allotted redeemable preference shares worth Rs 1.95 crore to 241 people in 2011-12 and 2012- 13. Since these shares were issued to more than 50 investors by the company, this qualified to be a public issue, which requires compulsory listing on recognised stock exchanges. Among others, the firm was also required to file their prospectus, which it failed to do.

Mumbai: The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has decided not to penalize self trades, reversing its earlier stand. The markets watchdog has also formulated a legal policy to dispose of the adjudication proceedings related to 100 showcause notices issued to market entities on self trades, two people aware of the issue said.

Orders that match each other but do not result in any change in ownership are called self trades. As many as 270,000 of an average of 12.2 million orders executed every day in the derivatives market are self trades, stock exchange data shows. Such trades typically take place when dealers from the same brokerage trade using the same client code.

New Delhi, Jun 8 () Markets regulator Sebi has directed five URO Group firms and their directors to refund the money, which they had illegally collected from the public, within three months.

These five firms are -- URO Walkers, URO Infra Reality India, URO Infotech, URO Lifecare and URO Hygienic Foods.

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