The Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday fined six persons and two institutions Tk 1.26 crore for their involvement in stock market manipulation in 2010.
None of the 12 people and two institutions named in a BSEC report submitted to the Anti-Corruption Commission in November last as swindlers of Tk 455 crore from the capital market was fined.
The BSEC on Tuesday fined investor Sayed Shiraj Ud Dowla Tk 30 lakh for his involvement in share price manipulation of RN Spinning Mills.
The commission fined Mahbubur Rahman Tk 15 lakh and Mujibul Haque Tk 2 lakh for manipulating the share price of Legacy Footwear Ltd.
The issuer of Legacy Footwear was also fined Tk 5 lakh for providing misleading information in the company’s financial statement for 2010.
The BSEC fined Abu Sadat Mohammad Sayem Tk 6 lakh, Abdul Mubin Molla Tk 12 lakh, Mahmuda Yesmin Tk 40 lakh, and Dream Holdings Ltd Tk 15 lakh for manipulating share prices of Fu Wang Foods Ltd.
The capital market regulator fined Rusty Securities and Consultant Tk 1 lakh for violating the securities law in trading of Libra Infusion Ltd and also warned one of its clients, Ratan Kumar Shaha, on the same ground.
‘All the fines were imposed for the stock market manipulation in 2010 based on the government probe report,’ a senior SEC official told New Age.
The country’s capital market witnessed the biggest meltdown in history in late 2010 after some powerful quarters had led the market to a bubble with unprecedented rises in share prices.
The government formed a high-powered probe committee headed by Krishi Bank chairman Khondker Ibrahim Khaled to investigate into the crash.
The Khaled committee report suggested further investigation of some other politically influential individuals for their involvement in the market manipulation.
The alleged persons are HBM Iqbal, Lutfur Rahman Badal and his wife Soma Alam Rahman, Ahsan Imam and his wife Mehjabeen Mustafa Imam, Yakub Ali Khandaker and his daughter Sarah Khandaker, Ghulam Mustafa and his wife Nasima Akter, Amzad Hossain Fakir and his wife Rukhsana Amzad, and Monir Uddin Ahmed, according a BSEC report submitted to the ACC.
According to the report, they swindled around Tk 355 crore from the capital market.
The report said the Unique Hotel and the New England Equity also swindled around Tk 100 crore from the share market.
The BSEC at Tuesday’s meeting also discharged the managing director and the company secretary of RN Spinning Mills for anomalies in offering rights shares of the company.
The BSEC also fined RN Spinning Mills director Shirin Faruk Tk 25 lakh and every other director Tk 50 lakh each on the same ground.