LI Network
Published on: 19 May 2023 at 15:50 IST
The panel of experts appointed by the Supreme Court to investigate the consequences of the Hindenburg allegations has exonerated the Adani Group and stated that there was no evidence of regulatory failure on the part of the market regulator, SEBI.
According to the panel of domain experts, there was no price manipulation by the Adani Group, and the conglomerate had implemented appropriate measures to reassure retail investors.
The panel further stated that the mitigating actions taken by the group had played a role in restoring confidence in the stock, leading to its stability at present.
The committee, which has recently presented its findings to the Supreme Court, highlighted that SEBI had identified certain entities that had taken short positions before the release of the Hindenburg report and had benefited from the subsequent price decline.
However, the committee did not discover any consistent pattern of artificial trading or wash trades involving the same parties on multiple occasions. Additionally, no clear evidence of abusive trading practices emerged from their investigation.
The committee unequivocally stated that there was no regulatory failure in relation to the Minimum Public Shareholding requirement, and there were no breaches of compliance. The committee further emphasized that the market regulator had not substantiated its suspicions with concrete evidence to support the prosecution of alleged violations.
According to the committee’s findings, foreign portfolio investors holding Adani Group stocks were found to be compliant with SEBI’s regulations.
The committee has refrained from providing any comment on the merits of the ongoing investigation conducted by SEBI regarding the allegations of price manipulation in Adani stocks surrounding the Hindenburg report. The committee has chosen not to offer any specific observations on this issue.
Nevertheless, the committee did note that the Indian market did not experience excessive volatility during the relevant period. The overall impact of Adani Group-related events on the broader market was relatively low, given that the Adani Group’s index weightage was negligible in the Sensex-30 and approximately 2% in the Nifty 50.
