SECP files criminal case against seven investors in Karachi sessions court for market manipulation
Karachi: Seven individual investors have been accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) for artificially inflating the share price of Silver Star Insurance Limited from Rs5 to Rs12 at the Pakistan Stock Exchange. A criminal complaint has been filed against these investors in the Karachi sessions court for market manipulation.
The accused individual investors against whom the complaint has been filed are: Ghulam Rasool, Sohail Amin Ghazi, Ali Raza, Imran Khatri, Ehtisham Rais, Muhammad Noor and Muhammad Fayyaz. All of them are clients of Multiline Securities Ltd. Multiline Securities Ltd has been exonerated of any wrongdoing in this case, according to an SECP official.
The Section 133 of the 2015 Securities Act criminalizes market manipulation and SECP has carried out several investigations to probe and reduce such schemes from getting executed. The statement from the SECP added “Based on an investigation, the SECP found that the group indulged in market manipulation by generating artificial volume and placed orders in a suspicious pattern. Out of these orders placed, a large number of orders were cancelled before execution, giving a false impression of active trading.”
No shares of Silver Start Insurance were traded on Friday and its price closed at Rs6.34.
