SEBI v. Crosseas Capital Services Pvt. Ltd. (self-trades in Wockhardt Ltd, 2023)

Dismissed

✓ Checked against the primary document on October 8, 2026. The library's summary, tags and figures for this record were compared with the regulator's own document by an AI model (Claude) following written instructions, in a single reading of the order; an independent second reading of 60 SEBI records agreed on every field for 56, the four misses being penalty amounts; a later sample of 50 of the SEBI records added on 9 October agreed on every field for 46. No lawyer has reviewed them. A checked record can still contain errors, and checked does not mean endorsed. See how we check records or report a correction.

Report an error in this record (sebi-72813-wash-trading-2023) by email

In June 2023 a SEBI whole-time member dropped a case against a stockbroker accused of creating artificial volume in Wockhardt shares through self-trades in its own account, accepting that the trades came from algorithmic software and that the notice alleged no manipulative pattern. The show cause notice was disposed of without directions.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

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Alleged gain

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A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

This final order was issued on 19 June 2023 by Ananta Barua, a whole-time member of SEBI. The sole noticee is Crosseas Capital Services Pvt. Ltd., a stockbroker. It is one of four entities addressed in a September 2022 show cause notice about trading in Wockhardt Ltd, whose shares trade on NSE and BSE; the others were dealt with in separate orders.

SEBI alleged that the broker repeatedly traded against itself in its own proprietary account, with the same broker on both the buy and sell side. The show cause notice recorded 233 self-trades on NSE in 145,475 shares, about 0.21 per cent of market volume in the relevant data, and 246 on BSE in 258,476 shares, about 0.87 per cent. It said this created artificial volume and a misleading appearance of trading, in breach of the PFUTP Regulations 3 and 4 and the broker code of conduct.

The broker said the trades were generated by approved algorithmic trading software and were not intentional. The order accepts that, for algorithmic trading, self-trades cannot be attributed to a broker unless they are part of price or volume manipulation or another fraudulent scheme. It notes that the notice alleged no reversal or synchronised trading, no orders away from the last traded price and no new high prices, and gave no fraudulent pattern.

On that basis the order finds no violation of the PFUTP Regulations. The code-of-conduct charge depended solely on the PFUTP charge, so it also failed. The show cause notice was disposed of without any directions, penalty or bar.

The record does not show whether SEBI appealed. This is a dismissal of an allegation, not a finding of manipulation, and the order says nothing about any gain or loss.

This library tags the matter as wash trading (self-trades); the allegation was not sustained. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above. This page deliberately summarises the structured record rather than reproducing the order.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Wash trading — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2023-06-19 SEBI order

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• SEBI order
• Order (PDF)

The linked release is published by the issuing regulator under its own terms. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added October 8, 2026. submit a correction.