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Mumbai , Sept. 14

THE Securities and Exchange Board of India is yet to decide on appealing against the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) order on UBS.

Last week, SAT overthrew SEBI's order that banned UBS from issuing participatory notes for one year for its role in the stock market crash on May 17, 2004. The SEBI Chairman, Mr M. Damodaran, said, "The possibility of SEBI appealing the order in the Supreme Court is 50 per cent." Mr Damodaran spoke to newspersons on the sidelines of the CII Seminar on Corporate Governance.

He was also non-committal about SEBI reviewing its `Know Your Client' Regulation. SAT had come down heavily on the regulation, calling it "vague."

On the controversy surrounding oil companies' announcement of exploration and gas finds, Mr Damodaran, said, "We cannot set standards for each industry. In this case, Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) already has set some standards in place about when oil exploration announcements can be made," he said. SEBI is working with DGH to relate this with the capital markets. "Anything that needs to be in the public domain must come at the right time. We don't have technical competencies on who will ensure what needs to be reported to the public when and on which sector," he said. Mr Damodaran added that SEBI is awaiting clearance from the RBI to ensure that refunds from initial public offers are electronically cleared to investors' bank accounts. The delay of three-four weeks currently experienced by IPO investors awaiting refunds would be settled once the clearance is given. On the current state of the stock markets, the regulator is investigating unusual movements in certain shares.

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