The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) will
come up with a new set of norms to curb insider trading within the next ten days.
Sebi Chairman UK Sinha said the market regulator has received the recommendations and it is "almost through with the final report, which should be issued in a week or at best in the next ten days".
The
capital markets watchdog had set up an expert panel in March this year to suggest new measures
to regulate insider trading. The panel submitted its recommendations to Sebi, based on which a final report is being prepared.
The new insider trading regulations would replace nearly two-decade old set of norms.
There have been several amendments to the existing insider trading regulations ever since they were first set up nearly two decades ago.
The
expert committee set up in March was headed by NK Sodhi, retired Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court and former presiding officer of the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT). The members comprised Sebi officials, executives from companies, legal experts and journalists.
While setting up the committee, Sebi had said that world over the regulatory focus was shifting towards containing the rising menace of insider trading effectively.
The new norms are also believed to take into account the practises that are followed in other parts of the world.
Sinha was speaking on the sidelines of a Crisil event on corporate bonds market, where Economic Affairs secretary Arvind Mayaram was also present. Sinha also released a Crisil yearbook on the Indian corporate debt market.
Sinha also emphasised the need for having a unified trading platform for deepening the corporate debt market and said Sebi is working with all stakeholders, including the Reserve Bank, to usher in such a facility.
Just like the Government securities has the Clearing Corporation of India (CCIL) platform where reporting and settlement of a transaction takes place, the corporate bond market also requires a unified platform, Sinha said.
"If you want the corporate bond market to develop, we need to have such a platform," he said addressing bond market participants.
"We are working with the RBI and others, who are concerned with this, on how we can make a unified debt market in this country," he said.
The Sebi chief said "We have a over-the-counter platform, one of the exchanges and the third one of the market participants Fimmda where the trading happens."
Underlining the need for integration, Sinha cited the case of commercial papers and certificate of deposits, saying the settlements happens in one particular stock exchange, while the reporting happens somewhere else.
The Sebi had issued its guidelines for a unified debt platform recently and NSE has positively reacted to it by launching its own platform on November 11, he said.
Addressing the seminar, Economic Affairs Secretary Arvind Mayaram called for deepening the corporate bond market, which according to Crisil stood at Rs 18.3 trillion in 2012.
Mayaram said in terms of GDP and the size, the Indian corporate bond market is 27 per cent of China's and 69 per cent of South Korea, indicating there is a long way to go for the domestic market.
Stressing on the need for developing corporate bond market, Sinha said we have not been able to achieve much despite the "despondent" efforts put in the recent years.
He, however, added there are a few positives and pointed towards the growth of 35 per cent in money raised in the last two fiscal.
But, the secondary market is not developed in the country which dents investor interest in the corporate bond segment, Sinha maintained.
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