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Informist, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2026

 

--SEBI impounds 2 entities accounts for likely closing auction manipulation 

--SEBI bars Copthall Mauritius from closing auction for likely manipulation 

--SEBI bars Mansi Broking s proprietary account from closing auction session 

 

MUMBAI – The Securities and Exchange Board of India Wednesday passed an interim order against Copthall Mauritius Investment Ltd. and Mansi Share and Stock Broking Pvt. Ltd. for alleged manipulation during the closing auction session on the BSE Sensex derivatives expiry Thursday. The markets regulator barred Copthall Mauritius and Mansi Share proprietary account from the closing auction session, it said in the interim order.

 

SEBI has impounded INR 29.62 million in the bank accounts of Copthall Mauritius and INR 7.16 million in Mansi Share's accounts. The entities have been directed to open fixed deposit accounts in their names to credit the said amounts with a lien marked in favour of the regulator. The impounded amounts represented the prima facie wrongful gains made by the two entites. In its interim order, SEBI also directed the depositories to freeze debits from the dematerialised accounts of the two entities.

 

SEBI said its surveillance system flagged suspect trades across three time windows during the closing auction session Thursday when Sensex values spiked. Since Sensex values during the 1520 IST-1530 IST closing auction session are based on the indicative equilibrium prices of the index's constituents, SEBI investigated the cash market trading pattern in the index stocks.

 

The regulator found the two entities' trading pattern during that closing auction session to be suspect on the face of it. Copthall Mauritius, according to SEBI, had placed "large buy orders at significantly higher prices at three times" and Mansi Share had placed "large sell orders at lower prices and then subsequently cancelling them". SEBI said in its interim order that since this was "prima facie highly unusual", it decided to check their equity derivatives positions.

 

According to SEBI, there did not appear to be any economic rationale for Copthall Mauritius "to place large buy orders across the Sensex constituents at prices 3?ove the reference price, particularly when the IEP (indicative equilibrium price) was much lower", or for Mansi Share to place sell orders "across eight Sensex constituents at prices substantially below the reference price". The placement of these orders by the two entities appeared, on the face of it, to have been done with the intent of influencing the indicative equilibrium prices upwards in the case of Copthall Mauritius and downwards in the case of Mansi Share, SEBI said.

 

Copthall pushed the Sensex value higher "by placing aggressive buy orders at 3% higher than the reference price" and accounting for "85% of the gross buy value", according to SEBI. Mansi Share, on the other hand, pushed the Sensex lower for 4-5 minutes by placing sell orders at prices much lower than the reference price. This downward pressure by Mansi Share was released when the entity cancelled its sell orders, SEBI said in the interim order.

 

SEBI examined the concurrent equity derivatives positions of the two entities Thursday, which was the expiry day for weekly Sensex derivatives contracts. In the case of Copthall Mauritius, a movement in the Sensex from 77820 points to 78080 points led to an additional payoff on certain call option positions and avoidance of payment on certain put option positions. This gave the entity a wrongful gain of INR 29.62 million, according to the regulator.

 

Mansi Share, on the other hand, exited certain Sensex put option positions while its aggressive sell orders in some underlying index stocks were outstanding. SEBI said Mansi Share's positions "would otherwise have expired worthless". This gave the broker wrongful gains of INR 7.16 million, the regulator said.

 

The two entities have been given 21 days to respond to SEBI's interim order and also intimate whether they want to have personal hearings with the regulator.  End

 

Reported by Rajesh Gajra and Ashutosh Pati

Edited by Rajeev Pai

 

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