Sunday, September 13, 2009

IST'S LANDMARK JUDGEMENT ON NOVA SECURITIES

Last week some newspapers reported on the landmark judgement of the Investment and Securities Tribunal quashing the earlier indictment of Nova Securities by both The Nigerian Stock Exchange and the Securities and Exchange Commision for price manipulation and creating a false market in the shares of African Petroleum Plc.This is already generating heated debates as the case was previously thought of as straight forward and easy to discern.

As a recap,earlier in the year,in the heat of the Dangote/Otedola crossfire,it was reported that Nova Securities was deliberately causing the price of Otedola's AP to decline sharply by crossing on a daily basis some units of the stock between some in-house accounts belonging to both their firm and Dangote.In the ensuing investigation,Aliko Dangote was cleared of any wrongdoing by the two regulatory bodies,while Nova was indicted and penalised severely.The stockbrokerage firm,as law abiding citizens took their case to court.

However from newspaper reports of the IST judgement,the court completely upturned the regulators' decisions and cleared Nova of any wrongdoing.I therefore congratulate Nova and their their CEO Eugene Anenih,a very humble and pleasant fellow.

But I wont deceive myself,this judgement is going to raise up several sticky issues with respect to the regulation of the Nigerian capital market.I mean let's face it ,somebody's professional reputation was on the brink of total destruction, while a whole company would have been run out of business.So,was Nova unduely punished in the first place or was it the court that was not furnished with sufficient facts ?

1 comment:

  1. The Dangote/Otedola crossfire is purely personal. I think it has to do with their ego. Anyway, now that the Investment and Securities Tribunal has nullified the indictment of Nova Securities for price manipulation of AP shares, Dangote can move on and look forward to a new dawn as the NSE boss. Omatshola

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you 'gree ?