INSIDER TRADING

Presented By : Rohit Kumar Jaitly Praveen Kumar Mohit Arora Monika Bansal Sulagna Dutta

INSIDER TRADING

CASE OVERVIEW
The case primarily involves 4 parties namely Unit Trust of India(UTI), Hindustan Lever Limited(HLL), Brooke Bond Lipton India Limited(BBLIL), and Securities & Exchange Board of India(SEBI). HLL planned a merger with sister concern BBLIL so that Uniliver has a major stake in merged company. Merger was to be carried out by HLL acquiring shares of BBLIL. The corresponding stock exchanges were informed on 19 April, 1996. HLL bought 8,00,000 shares of BBLIL from UTI just before the merger was initiated. SEBI accused HLL of INSIDER TRADING while entering in the above mentioned transaction. SEBI penalized HLL with Rs. 34 million & also initiated criminal proceedings against five common directors of HLL & BBLIL. On 15 July, 1998 the Union Finance Ministry absolved HLL of all charges of insider trading & quashed all the proceedings against the Directors.

WHAT IS INSIDER TRADING...???

Insider trading refers to a situation, where in a person, by virtue of his position to access unpublished price sensitive information of the company, gains such access and subsequently uses the information obtained for his or her personal benefits. .

ISSUES INVOLVED IN THE CASE

1) Whether HLL was an insider or not? 2) Whether or not the pre-merger information HLL had access to was Unpublished? 3) Whether HLL had any price sensitive information with regard to the merger? 4) Whether or not HLL had gained any unfair advantage out of the deal?

ISSUE 1
Whether HLL was an insider or not...???

As per clause 2(e) of SEBI regulations Insider means any person who is or was connected with the company or is deemed to have been connected with the company, and who is reasonably expected to have access, by virtue of such connection, to unpublished price sensitive information, in respect of securities of the company or who has received or has had access to such unpublished price sensitive information.

Applicability of Clause 2(e)

SEBIs arguments
Argument 1 As per SEBI, HLL is deemed to be connected with BBLIL and thus had access to the price sensitive information of merger

HLLs arguments
Counter Argument 1 As per HLL, the company had access to the information because it was the primary party to the merger and no where in the world primary party is considered to be an insider from view-point of insider Counter Argument 2 No counter argument

Argument 2 HLL falls in the category of insider who might not be connected to the company ,but who had access to such undisclosed price sensitive information

CONCLUSION FOR ISSUE 1

As per the above given arguments it can be concluded that HLL was an INSIDER as they did have access to the price sensitive information, even though they did not obtain it via any connections, but through there position as primary party in the merger and they took advantage in the form of buying shares from UTI so as to consolidate there position.

ISSUE 2
Whether or not the premerger information HLL had access to was Unpublished?

As per Clause 2(k) Unpublished price sensitive information means, information which is of concern, directly or indirectly, to a company, and is not generally known or published by such company for general information, but which if published or known, is likely to materially affect the price of securities of that company in the market.

SEBIs argument

HLLs argument

SEBI, on the basis of statement of a UTI official, tried to prove that information about the merger was Unpublished. They also stated that the information about merger was speculative and that only HLL could sufficiently understand the technicality involved and use this information. Thus HLL has gone against the regulation.

As per HLL even before the transaction with UTI the merger was subject matter of wide market & media speculation. HLL pointed out that before transaction took place share price of BBLIL moved from Rs. 242 to Rs. 320 showing that merger was a generally known information.

HLL still further contended that UTI was a large institution & it was not possible for UTI to remain ignorant about the widespread speculation in the market.

Conclusion for issue 2

From the above arguments it can be deduced that the merger was something which was being speculated even before the transaction between HLL & UTI took place. So it was not an Unpublished price sensitive Information. HLL used the information just like any other investor in the market.

ISSUE 3
Whether HLL had any price sensitive information with regard to the merger?

Section 2k of SEBIs regulation laid down eight examples of price-sensitive information, which includes inter alia amalgamations, mergers, and takeovers.

SEBIs arguments

HLLs arguments

As per SEBI, term merger is a pricesensitive information i.e. Widespread news of merger in the market would impact the number of shares bought or sold by investors in the market. HLL had information about the merger with BBLIL

HLL argued that the merger itself was not a price-sensitive information as investors with reasonable knowledge would not be induced to buy the shares unless the share Swap Ratio is known HLL did not know the swap ratio at the time of buying shares from UTI

SWAP RATIO
Ratio at which shares are allotted by new company to the old company. For e.g. Swap ratio of 1:10 means that the new company will issue 1 share for every 10 shares held by shareholders of the old company.

Conclusion for issue 3

HLL and BBLIL are sister concerns, having common board of directors, under the same holding company i.e. Unilever and are large profit making companies with frequently traded shares. Thus the news of merger would not create any ripples across the market as the companies already have many things in common. It would not cause any excessive trading on the part of investors. However, market would certainly react if the SWAP ratio arrived is such that it is favourable to one company while unfavourable to other. In that case it becomes a price sensitive information.

ISSUE 4
Whether or not HLL had gained any unfair advantage out of the deal?

SEBIs arguments

HLLs arguments

As per SEBI, Making profit or losses is not a legal requirement under the regulation to establish charge of insider trading. As per SEBI, HLL benefitted in the form of uncertainty attached with the market reaction to the news of Merger and its subsequent impact on share prices.

As per HLL after the merger all the shares purchased got cancelled and so there were no financial gains to the company. They bought 8,00,000 of BBLIL shares from UTI at Rs. 350 while the market price was Rs.318 thus at 10% premium. Finally aim was to consolidate the shareholdings of UNILEVER.

Conclusion to issue 4
Even though HLL says that it was not benefited from the transaction with UTI, however it was able to churn out huge gains. When they formally announced merger, the market price shot up from Rs. 318 to Rs. 405 per share while they bought those shares for Rs.350. If UTI had not sold these shares they would have got shares worth Rs.483.3 million in the merged HLL, Rs. 208.3 million more than what they received by selling them to HLL before merger.

Overall it can be concluded that stand taken by SEBI is incorrect because:-

1) The information about the Merger was not an unpublished information. 2) The merger itself was not a price sensitive information. 3) Unintentional gains out of the transactions.

RESPONE OF UNION FINANCE MINISTRY...

 Union ministry upheld HLLS view that the merger was generally known as it was widely speculated in national media. As per the ministry, SEBI should gather conclusive evidence and should present strong case to support its arguments. Still further the SEBI suffered from procedural deficiencies and prosecuting and penalizing HLL was beyond there jurisdiction.

WAS THE RESPONSE JUSTIFIED...???

 Response of the Union Finance Ministry was correct. Stance taken by the ministry to treat the merger as generally known information is appropriate, as it was being widely speculated in the media and any investor could use the same. Also there were question marks about the powers of SEBI and without the authority to do so SEBI could not penalize HLL and prosecute the directors. This case helped us in realising that it is necessary to define the powers of SEBI.

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