BENGALURU: Two executives of IT major Infosys Pranshu Bhutra, Senior Corporate Counsel and Venkata Subramaniam VV, Senior Principal, Corporate Accounting Group may face suspension if allegations that they shared unpublished price sensitive information are proven, legal experts told this publication.
On May 31, SEBI barred both the Infosys employees, as well as six other entities, from trading after finding prima facie that they had helped traders earn profits worth Rs 3 crore from June-July,2020.
In August 2020, Infosys had fined its independent director Bobby Parikh for inadvertent trading by his wife’s portfolio company, which violated the company’s policies.
Earlier, the company had also been challenged by a whistleblower letter accusing CEO Salil Parekh of manipulating accounts to influence financial results. Parekh, was eventually found not guilty by the company’s investigation committee.
Meanwhile, SEBI’s May 31 order says that entities including Tesora Capital and Capital One Partners were found involved in multiple instances of future and option trading, especially during the time when quarterly financial results were announced. SEBI said that it is in possession of multiple email exchanges, phone recordings and transactions which establish that they violated market regulations.
“There is definitely complacency at the top executive level, especially among those who were in possession of price sensitive information and passed it on. The company’s insider trading policies may even warrant the suspension of those involved... This will dent the firm’s corporate governance standards,” Neeraj Dubey, Partner Singh& Associates said.