Reliance Petroleum insider trading case gets murkier

According to Sebi, while the merger process between RPL with RIL was on, RIL was involved in short selling of RPL shares through its entities.

“RIL has been trying to settle the case through consent orders but its proposals have been rejected twice by the regulator, which felt the amount put up by the company was inadequate. In the first consent application, RIL offered to pay a penalty of Rs 3 crore while on the second occasion it offered to pay less than Rs 10 crore as penalty, which was unacceptable to the regulator,” the ET report said.

Consent order is an out-of-court settlement wherein  parties agree to a sum of amount as fine by the aggregator, while the regulator drops all charges of wrongdoing.

Reliance Industries, meanwhile, has sought time until January 14 to file a reply in the dispute between market regulator Sebi and the Central Information Commission (CIC) at the Bombay High Court. The case will now be heard on January 23.

In November, the CIC had ordered Sebi to reveal the identities of the the entities that were involved in short selling of Reliance Petroleum shares to a Bangalore-based lawyer who had sought these details under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, along with details of the investigation report and consent order proceedings in this matter. But on 21 November, Sebi  moved Bombay High Court against the CIC order saying CIC can’t force the regulator to disclose details of investigations before the final order has been issued.

The High Court on 4 December decided to make RIL a party to the case as it was involved in the settlement process.

While the battle continues, one wonders why Sebi took five years to investigate an insider trading case.

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Reliance, BP shut 7th well in KG-D6 gas block

Reuters

A Reliance spokesman declined to comment on the matter.

Production at the block may average 22.6 mmscmd in the fiscal year starting April 2013 and is projected to decline to 20 mmscmd in 2014/15, only about a third of the 60 mmscmd it produced in 2010 and well below the planned peak capacity of 80 mmscmd.

Reliance may have to shut under-performing gas fields in 2015-16, oil secretary G.C. Chaturvedi said in October, while Morgan Stanley analysts have said the key gas producing fields in D6 could be exhausted in 5 years.

Reliance brought in the British oil and gas company last year, which paid $7.2 billion to invest in 23 oil and gas blocks with the Indian firm, hoping its offshore expertise would help arrest the decline in output.

The D6 block, operated by Reliance, was expected to contribute up to a quarter of the gas supply for Asia’s third-largest economy.

Reliance and BP submitted a revised field development plan in September, cutting the gas reserves in the D6 block by about two-thirds to 3.4 trillion cubic feet, the oil ministry said last month.

Reliance had government approval to drill 50 wells and had drilled only 22 with 4 turning out to be dry, the source said.

Canadian company Niko Resources owns 10 percent interest in the block, while Reliance holds 60 percent and BP the rest.

Reuters

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Notices to Reliance, Sahara 6 other insurance cos for tax violation

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