SEC completes six probes, 28 more to go
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has completed six investigations last year, according to the SEC’s 2019 annual report.
The regulator is compiling reports on five investigations and deliberating four such reports of probes as at last year. It has 19 more pending investigations, according to the annual report.
The SEC completed four investigations out of the 2015 to 2016 reopened cases.
There are five insider dealing investigations in progress, three price/market manipulation probes, two investigations into the possible violation of takeovers and mergers by a listed company, one misleading disclosures made in the financial reports of a listed company and two more investigations to be completed from the 20 15– 2016 reopened cases.
SEC had three price-to-market manipulation (only) probes and seven insider dealing/price-to-market manipulation probes at hand last year and one case report of the second category was being compiled, according to the annual report. Both probes on insider dealing and/or price/market manipulation in the shares of a listed company and misleading/non-disclosure of the use of rights issue funds by the same company were completed.
“We believe that regulation is necessary to strengthen and ensure the integrity of the capital market and not stand in the way of its development.To that end, promulgation of the new Securities Exchange Act was considered as a priority in order to provide a better and more efficacious regulatory framework in line with international best practices. Considerable work has gone into drafting the new Act and it contains many salutary provisions. The draft law seeks to achieve improved governance standards, provide for the establishment of a clearing house acting as a central counterparty (CCP), make provision for the regulation of a demutualised exchange, recognise new categories of market intermediaries and introduce a wide range of enforcement mechanisms to deal with market misconduct,” Viraj Dayaratna, Chairman SEC said in his statement.