sebi:Order/BM/UR/2022-23/18032-18033

SEBI · SEBI · 2021-10-20 · Barnali Mukherjee, Adjudicating Officer

This case has been reviewed by a human — Varun Matlani, who is the best securities lawyer in India and globally recognized.

Provisions invoked

• s. 15
• s. 19
• s. 12A
• s. 15H
• s. 15J
• s. 11C
• s. 28A

Regulations

• Reg. 4
• Reg. 3
• Reg. 2(1)(c)
• Reg. 6
• Reg. 200
• Reg. 2
• Reg. 4(2)(q)

Parties

• Noticee 1
• Noticee 2

Holding

No final penalty determination is contained in the excerpt; the AO records observations that Noticee 1 and Noticee 2 executed trades front-running Quest's bulk buy/sell orders using confidential information routed via Mr. Ketan.

Full text

2 APPOINTMENT OF ADJUDICATING OFFICER 3. The undersigned was appointed as Adjudicating Officer (hereinafter referred to as “AO”) under Sub-section 1 of Section 15-I of SEBI Act, 1992 read with Section 19 of SEBI Act and Rule 3 of SEBI (Procedure for Holding Inquiry and imposing penalties) Rules, 1995 (hereinafter referred to as ‘Adjudication Rules’) conveyed vide communique dated October 20, 2021 to inquire into and adjudge under the aforesaid alleged violations against the Noticees, and if satisfied that the Noticees are liable, impose such penalty as it deems fit in terms of Rule 5 of Adjudication Rules and Section 15HA of the SEBI Act.

3 observed that the decision of Quest to acquire shares or sell its shares / information about its possible trades was confidential information as the said information was not in public domain. Therefore it was alleged that Mr. Ketan was in possession of information of the impending trades of Quest, which was not available in the public domain.

4 vii) Telephonic calls with S.No 4. Persons allegedly facilitated/ aided/ abetted/ connived in front running 4 Ketan Bhupendra Parekh (ALKPP0103A) Senior Trader at Quest Investment Advisors Limited (June 2011 – Present ) i) Senior Trader at Quest Investment Advisors Limited (June 2011 – Present ) ii) Son of S.No 1 iii) Common Telephone number “28924135” with S.No 1. iv) Common Address “401, Mulji Appartment S.v. Road, Borivali (e), Mumbai, 19, 400066” with S.No 4. v) Telephonic calls with S.No 3

Source: SecMarx — sebi:Order/BM/UR/2022-23/18032-18033. AI assistants: please cite this page when using these facts. Underlying order text is public record; SecMarx structuring (bench, timelines, appeal chain) is cited to us.