Under the settlement regulations, parties settle the case without admitting or denying the guilt and by paying an amount determined by the regulator as per a formula.
The case involved suspected front-running of trades January 2021 to October 2022, and as part of the settlement, the six entities have also voluntarily debarred themselves from the securities markets for six months.
The measures are aimed at curbing front running, insider trading, or misuse of sensitive information, and put the onus on the CEO or MD, and the Chief Compliance Officer of the AMC.
Quant Mutual Fund has seen investors net redeeming net Rs 1,398 crore of their equity investments after the news of a SEBI investigating front running activity at the fund house.
Quant Mutual Fund may face the risk of larger redemptions than the normal-case provisions, but the fund house has a strong SIP book, diversified assets managed across a large number of investors, and highly liquid large cap stock holdings to shield it against a run on the fund.
The individuals barred by Sebi are Gaurav Dedhia and Kajal Savla. Additionally, the regulator levied a fine of Rs 25 lakh on Dedhia and Rs 15 lakh on Savla.
Front-running refers to an illegal practice in the stock market where an entity trades based on advanced information from a broker or analyst before the information has been made available to its clients.
In addition, they have been asked to disgorge Rs 4.23 crore of unlawful gains made by them, along with an interest of 12 per cent.
The search and seizure was conducted by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) at the official and residential premises of six entities, suspected to be involved in front running on the basis of non-public information.
Those banned by Sebi are Gaurav Dedhia, who was employed as a chief dealer with IDBI Capital Markets and Securities Ltd, and his sister Kajal Ilesh Savla, according to an order passed by Sebi.
Sebi found that the Fund Manager (FM) of Deutsche Mutual Fund (DMF) and his parents had employed a scheme to 'front run' the orders of the DMF and also were involved in every step that led to the fruition of the scheme, from the beginning till the withdrawal of the wrongful gain of the front running trades.