Sebi ex-chief Madhabi Buch refutes claims of regulatory failure in Jane Street case

Mumbai, July 8 (IANS) Former Sebi Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch has pushed back against allegations of regulatory failure, calling them a false narrative.

The former Chairperson of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), on Tuesday refuted claims of regulatory failure in handling the Jane Street matter during her tenure.

Buch, who demitted office in February this year, clarified that Sebi had identified index manipulation by Jane Street and initiated several actions — including a cease-and-desist order — between April 2024 and February 2025.

“During that period, Sebi constituted a multi-disciplinary team of officials to conduct a comprehensive examination of the matter. This thorough investigation led to the detailed findings that form the basis of the order,” Buch said in a statement on Tuesday.

She said that the interim order issued by Sebi on July 3, 2025 has "clearly documented" the sequence of events leading up to the issuance of the order.

“In parallel, Sebi made various policy-level interventions in October 2024 and instructed the National Stock Exchange (NSE) to issue a cease and desist letter to Jane Street in February 2025,” the former chairperson added.

Jane Street is a proprietary trading firm, which means it trades with its own capital rather than managing client funds. The firm allegedly made a staggering Rs 32,681 crore in profits, by manipulating the stock market and repatriating the amount overseas.

Meanwhile, the current chairperson, Tuhin Kanta Pandey, said the regulator would be strengthening the surveillance and monitoring of such players and derivative trades.

He said that SEBI has all the powers to act against manipulative trading activities in the matter related to New York-headquartered trading major Jane Street Group, which is very evident from the interim order that has been issued to ban the global giant from the Indian stock market.

When asked whether there is a need to have more regulations to act against such entities, the Sebi Chairman quipped that the need was for enforcement and surveillance rather than more regulations and the “order in the Jane Street case speaks for itself.”

"Within the regulations only we have brought it. So, regulations remaining the same it is the enforcement and surveillance that can actually help. Excess regulations do not mean excess regulation. Those are two different things," Pandey remarked.

He highlighted that a great deal of analytical work went into the Jane Street case, as manipulative activities are done in many ways.

--IANS

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