The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has accelerated its efforts to curb the misconduct, market abuse and financial crimes of defaulting brokers of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX). For this purpose, the SECP is effectively making use of the international cooperation forum for regulation of securities’ laws: the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) is to confront the bad players in the market. It is encouraging to note that these efforts got a positive response from international authorities.
After successfully obtaining information about British passports and travel details of the owners and director of the defaulting brokerage house, the M.R. Securities, the SECP is now sharing these details with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) of the UK. The SECP is approaching the FCA, which is an effective regulator of the UK capital markets, to take up the issue of misappropriation of funds and illegal deposits Mazhar Rafiq of M.R. Securities.
Furthermore, the SECP under the IOSCO MMOU is providing the records and particulars of the owners of the defaulting brokers, Ace Securities, to the Canadian securities regulatory authorities, which were very responsive to the SECP’s earlier requests for assistance in the matters of absconding brokers. Moreover, the SECP has also provided details of some of the potential defaulting brokers to the interior ministry for a placement of their names on the exit control list.
At present, the SECP is conducting a comprehensive scrutiny to find out the lapses that hinder it to effectively discharge its mandated task to control and minimise misconduct, market abuse and financial crime from regulated sectors under its jurisdiction. Considering that, it is important to have an unhindered access to the information and data relating to the SECP’s inquiries, investigations or inspections. The SECP has also written to the Ministry of Interior through the Ministry of Finance, for its direct access to telephone calls data, the family trees of the CNIC holders, immigration and passport record and facilities of digital/cyber forensics from the relevant agencies.
The authorisation of such an access to information/data will bolster SECP’s enforcement regime at par with the international best practices and standards, as set out by the IOSCO.
