SEBI to keep firms on toes over information

Mumbai: The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) said that all listed firms should disclose their board decisions within 30 minutes from the closure of the board meeting while all information or events related to the company will have to be made public within 24 hours. These are part of the new stringent disclosure norms prescribed by the regulator to plug any leakage of confidential material information to select few individuals or entities in the stock market that took undue advantage and profited from such information.

The regulator warned that any non-compliance with the disclosure norms would attract stringent penal action. “For example, if quarterly disclosures are not made in time, we will issue warning letters, penalise them, and get stock exchanges to penalise them. We are also monitoring the quality of disclosures. We have got a team here and have enhanced the team in the stock exchanges. The feeling earlier was that while these guidelines were there, nobody was monitoring that. What I am trying to tell now is that we are very serious about monitoring,” said UK Sinha, chairman, SEBI.

“Most of the large corporates are already disclosing such information as soon as possible. However, earlier the disclosure of information to the stock exchanges, the lesser are the  chances of information leakages to select few entities or individuals and in turn strengthen the corporate governance standard,” said Jagannadham Thunuguntla, head of fundamental research, Karvy Stock Broking.