Can SEBI be more transparent?

The Securities and Exchange Board of India provided critical clarifications on its policies regarding offshore derivative instruments (participatory notes) issued by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) through a video conference on Monday, but their website still has no video recordings, no transcripts, no press releases on what was revealed during this conference. (I have looked in the “What is New”, “Press Releases”, “From the Chairman” and “News Clarifications” sections of the web site and also searched the site for “video conference”. I hope it is not hidden somewhere else in the site.)

SEBI’s policy announcements on this subject have caused intra-day movements in the market index of several percent in recent days and the potential for insider trading is immense whenever SEBI issues even the smallest clarification on the subject. That a video conference on such an important subject was done without it being webcast live is regrettable; that it was not even followed up with recordings and transcripts is unacceptable.

Posted at 2:57 pm IST on Wed, 24 Oct 2007         permanent link

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