Company shuts the trading window and freezes PANs after unpublished financial data was briefly shared on personal status
Hatsun Agro Product has issued a caution letter to H. Ramachandran, Chief Financial Officer, after he inadvertently shared draft third-quarter financial results on his personal WhatsApp status last week.
The status update, posted on 5 January, was viewed by about 19 people from his contact list, including some company insiders, before it was deleted within an hour.
“We have issued a caution letter advising the CFO to exercise greater care and vigilance in handling such information and directing strict adherence to regulatory requirements to prevent recurrence,” the company said in an exchange filing.
As CFO, Ramachandran oversees the company’s financial strategy and is responsible for all financial operations, analysis and reporting to the board.
Following the incident, the Company Secretary and Compliance Officer compiled details of all individuals who viewed the WhatsApp status, including their PAN information, based on disclosures made by the CFO. These details were subsequently updated in the list of designated persons maintained in the Structured Digital Database (SDD).
Hatsun Agro said the trading window was immediately closed for all individuals who were exposed to unpublished price sensitive information (UPSI), and their PANs were frozen on the NSDL Issuer Services Portal.
The disclosure comes amid strict insider trading norms enforced by the Securities and Exchange Board of India under the Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements Regulations, 2015, which bar insiders from trading in securities or communicating UPSI to make unfair gains.
An Insider Trading Investigation Committee (ITIC) was constituted on 6 January, comprising Vice Chairman C. Sathyan, Managing Director J. Shanmuga Priyan, and Company Secretary and Compliance Officer C. Subramaniam. “All the actions taken, including the list of identified persons and the detailed timeline of events, have been documented by the Committee for compliance and monitoring purposes,” the company said.
Shares of Hatsun Agro closed 1.7 per cent lower at Rs 930.55 on the BSE ahead of the disclosure, compared with a 0.3 per cent decline in the benchmark Sensex. The board is scheduled to consider and approve the December quarter results on 19 January.
