SEC v. Abhi Batra a/k/a Abhimanyu Batra (free riding and parking, 2021)

Judgment entered

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In January 2021 the SEC sued California resident Abhi Batra over an alleged free-riding scheme in which he recalled ACH transfers after losing options trades. On June 14, 2021 the court entered a final judgment ordering $665,211 in disgorgement, $6,577.16 in interest and a $195,047 penalty. The SEC later said he pleaded guilty and was sentenced in a parallel criminal case.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$195k

Disgorgement

$665k

Prejudgment interest

$6.6k

Total relief

$867k

Alleged gain

—

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

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced on January 19, 2021 (litigation release 25012) a complaint filed on January 15, 2021 in the Central District of California.

The SEC alleged that Batra moved money from bank accounts to brokerage accounts by ACH, bought speculative options, and when trades lost recalled the transfers by falsely saying he had not authorized them, imposing the losses on the brokerage firms but keeping profits. It alleged this ran from 2016 to 2020 in accounts in his name and in the names of six others, sometimes without their knowledge, with more than $1 million of ACH transfers recalled, about $98,000 of profits withdrawn and losses of about $665,000 left.

This library tags the matter as free riding because the conduct is trading on money he did not actually fund.

Outcome. The SEC's page on distributing the recovered money reports that the court entered a final judgment against Batra on June 14, 2021, ordering disgorgement of $665,211, prejudgment interest of $6,577.16 and a civil penalty of $195,047, $866,835.16 in all. He paid $50,000 in August 2021 but did not satisfy the judgment. On July 25, 2022 he pleaded guilty and was sentenced in a parallel criminal case, which ordered restitution of $665,221, and the SEC page says he paid $615,211 of that to the Commission in July 2022. The pages we read do not say whether the civil judgment was by consent or contested, and do not give a prison term; the SEC later arranged to distribute the money to harmed investors.

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 release.

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.

• Free riding and parking — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2021-01-19 Litigation release published
2. 2021-06-14 Final judgment entered (disgorgement, interest and penalty)

Primary documents

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

• SEC litigation release
• SEC page on distribution of the Batra fund (describes final judgment and criminal case)
• SEC posting: Final judgment as to Batra (June 2021)

The linked release is a work of the United States government and is not subject to copyright. 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 September 10, 2026. submit a correction.