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Islamabad— As part of its enforcement mandate, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has filed a criminal complaint against the company secretary of a listed company [Pak Suzuki], his four close relatives, and a private limited company for alleged involvement in insider trading. The SECP reached these findings after conducting thorough investigations under the Securities Act, 2015. The criminal complaint has been filed at the Special Court (Offenses in Banks), Sindh, Karachi, and the court has admitted the complaint No. 14 of 2025.
Sources confirmed to TechJuice that the employee involved in the insider trading case is the company secretary of Pak Suzuki Motor Company Limited. The Commission observed that certain clients accumulated shares of a listed company from August 22, 2023, to October 12, 2023, when material information regarding the buyback of shares by sponsors and their delisting was not public and was termed as inside information under the Securities Act, 2015 (the Act). The accumulation of a listed company’s shares by certain clients, when the information was non-public, raised suspicion of insider trading; therefore, an investigation under the Act for possible violation of insider trading was initiated.
The investigation findings revealed that the company secretary of the listed company was privy to price-sensitive information from August 11, 2023, owing to his official position in the company, and was handling matters relating to the delisting process. Hence, he was termed an insider. He allegedly shared price-sensitive confidential information, which was not publicly available at that time, with his close relatives and the chief executive officer of an associated company. The company secretary also provided funds to his relatives for acquiring the shares of the listed company and benefited from the illicit proceeds made from the trading of shares, based on insider information.
The accused parties accumulated the shares based on price-sensitive material information provided by the company secretary. Following the public disclosure of material information resulting in a significant increase in share prices, the accused parties sold the accumulated shares to the general public, collectively generating illicit gains amounting to Rs. 338.085 million. None of the accused had a prior history of trading in the shares of the Pak Suzuki company.
Under the Securities Act, 2015, insider trading, being a criminal offense, may lead to up to three years’ imprisonment or a fine not exceeding two hundred million rupees or three times the illicit gain. SECP is committed to taking effective supervision and enforcement actions to ensure the integrity of the capital market and protect investors from misconduct.
