Zee’s Punit Goenka pays Rs 50 lakh to settle insider trading case

Zee’s Punit Goenka pays Rs 50 lakh to settle insider trading case

Punit Goenka, MD and CEO of Zee Entertainment (ZEEL), has paid Rs 50 lakh to settle the insider trading case related to shares of Zee, according to a Sebi announcement on Thursday.

The regulator had, in August last year, passed an interim order against 15 entities for carrying out insider trading activities with respect to the Zee scrip. Confirmatory orders for the same were passed in September last year and February this year.

The firm had launched cinema-to-home service ZEEPLEX in 2020, a pay-per-view service and “new content consumption medium for consumers and film distribution model”.

Sebi’s investigation concluded that announcement of the launch of ZEEPLEX  amid Covid restrictions qualified as ‘expansion of business’, and was thus a positive development about the company. Information related to business expansion is covered under regulations pertaining to UPSI.

The Prohibition of Insider Trading (PIT) Regulations, 2015, state that the MD, CEO, and the likes in listed companies shall put in place an adequate and effective system of internal controls to put a check on insider trading and to ensure compliance with the stated regulations.

However, the regulator found that Goenka — who was MD and CEO during ZEEPLEX’s launch — failed to put in place adequate internal controls to identify UPSI, and failed to classify the said information as UPSI.

As a result, the regulator issued a show cause notice to Goenka in December 2022. Goenka subsequently agreed to settle the matter “without admitting or denying the findings of fact and conclusions of law”.