India market regulator seeks 6-month extension to complete Adani probe: document

MUMBAI, NEW DELHI –

India’s market regulator has requested for a six-month extension to finish its probe into potential lapses in securities market legal guidelines and regulatory disclosures by billionaire Gautam Adani’s Adani group, in response to a court docket doc seen by Reuters.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) filed its request with the Supreme Court on Saturday, citing complicated transactions involving the conglomerate’s listed, unlisted and offshore entities that require deeper investigations.

Adani mentioned in an announcement that the group was absolutely compliant with all legal guidelines, guidelines and laws.

“We are fully co-operating with SEBI and will continue to provide all our support and co-operation,” it added.

SEBI didn’t reply to a Reuters request for remark.

The Supreme Court requested the regulator to conduct an inquiry into Adani after U.S.-based short-seller Hindenburg Research raised issues round its governance practices in a January report.

The group, whose foremost business is infrastructure, has mentioned Hindenburg’s report was baseless and referred to as its allegations “unsubstantiated speculations.”

The court docket had given the regulator till May 2 to submit its report.

In its software, the regulator mentioned it wanted extra time “to conduct a proper investigation and arrive at verified findings.”

It is investigating alleged breach of associated celebration transaction guidelines, public shareholding norms and share worth manipulation.

Related celebration transaction guidelines lay down practices to be adopted when two related events are concerned in a transaction, whereas public shareholding norms set out the minimal shareholding of an exchange-listed firm required to be held by the general public.

SEBI in its software mentioned that additional investigations are crucial in circumstances the place preliminary findings level to violations of securities legal guidelines.

The software doesn’t disclose particulars of the violations.

The regulator mentioned that it had obtained data from a number of Adani group entities. However, this must be independently verified and extra data has been sought from offshore regulators, since among the transactions below scrutiny contain offshore entities, it mentioned within the court docket doc.

(Reporting by Jayshree P. Upadhyay in Mumbai and Arpan Chaturvedi in Delhi; modifying by Clelia Oziel)