The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), yesterday, announced the expulsion of Gosord Securities Limited and Lakesworth Investment & Securities Limited as members of the exchange.
The NSE revoked the duo licences over regulatory infractions involving unauthorised sale of clients’ shares contrary to the rules and regulations governing dealing members of the exchange after carefully considering the documents relating to each firm and giving each firm an opportunity to be heard reached the decision to expel both firms and revoke their dealing licences.
Speaking on the development, the head, Legal and Regulation Division, Ms Tinuade Awe, said, “The NSE is committed to restoring investor confidence in the Nigerian capital market. The NSE will not hesitate to bring the full weight of its regulatory powers to bear on any dealing member that commits regulatory infractions and does not take steps to address them as appropriate even after being given sufficient time to do so.”
She explained that of all the penalties, expulsion and revocation of dealing licence is usually viewed as a last resort where a dealing member fails to engage in conduct to rectify wrong doing or comply with the directives of the national council of the NSE.
According to the NSE, the exchange received several complaints of unauthorised sale of clients’ shares against Gosord, which breached Article 59(v) of the Rules and Regulations Governing Dealing Members of NSE by engaging in unauthorised sales of clients’ shares.
On the part Lakesworth, NSE received complaint of unauthorised sales of a client’s shares.
The NSE said these conducts were dishonourable, disgraceful, unprofessional and detrimental to the interests of the stock market which could lead to eroding investor’s confidence in the market and eroding the goal of NSE to operate a fair, transparent and orderly market.
Meanwhile the equity market gained marginally by 0.03 per cent after days of losses.
The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) All Share Index (ASI) gained 8.53 basic points or 0.03 to close at 33,224.84 as against the 33,216.31 achieved on Friday.
Similarly, the market capitalisation rose by N2 billion to close at N11.004 trillion from the N11.002 trillion posted on Friday.
Source : Leadership