India Fines Reliance Over Facebook* Deal

 India Fines Reliance Over Facebook* Deal
Photo: https://techstory.in/reliance-industries-5-7-billion-offer-for-t-mobile-netherlands/ 22.06.2022 543

The regulator imposed a penalty of 3 million Indian rupees ($38,522) on Reliance and the two compliance officers.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) said telecom giant Reliance did not disclose the deal even after newspaper reports in March 2020 published price-sensitive details about the imminent investment that led to a spike in its shares.

India's market regulator on Monday fined Reliance Industries and two of its compliance officers for violating fair disclosure norms during Facebook's (*banned in Russia) $5.7 billion investment in its digital unit in 2020.

In April 2020, Facebook invested $5.7 billion in India's largest telecom operator, Reliance's Jio Platforms. 

Jio includes a variety of services, including: music platform JioSaavn, a platform for broadcasting TV programs JioTV, online delivery service JioMart, payment service JioPay, etc.

Facebook planned to integrate the small business-oriented service JioMart with the messenger WhatsApp. This would enable users to interact with businesses and make purchases within a single mobile app. The deal helped billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance slash its heavy debt load.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) said Reliance did not disclose the deal even after newspaper reports in March 2020 published price-sensitive details about the imminent investment that led to a spike in its shares.

"When the bits of (unpublished price-sensitive information) that then became selectively available the company abdicated its responsibility to verify and come clean on the unverified information that was floating around",

 SEBI said in its order.

SEBI said it was "incumbent" on Reliance to provide "due clarification on its own" once it knew about the "selective availability" of the information.

The regulator imposed a penalty of 3 million Indian rupees ($38,522) on Reliance and the two compliance officers.

Source: Hindustan Times

digital markets  India 

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