New York: US market regulator Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Tuesday charged four Indian brokerages—Ambit Capital Pvt. Ltd, Edelweiss Financial Services Ltd, JM Financial Institutional Securities Pvt. Ltd and Motilal Oswal Securities Ltd—for violating registration rules and they have agreed to pay over $1.8 million to settle the charges.
The officials of the brokerages could not be immediately contacted.
In a statement, the SEC said it has charged Ambit Capital, Edelweiss Financial Services, JM Financial Institutional Securities and Motilal Oswal Securities “for providing brokerage services to institutional investors in the US without being registered with the SEC as required under the federal securities laws”.
Together, the four firms have “agreed to pay more than $1.8 million combined to settle the SEC’s charges”.
According to the regulator, these entities engaged with the US investors despite being unregistered broker-dealers, in ways such as sponsored conferences in the US, among others.
“In their respective settlements, the firms agreed to be censured while neither admitting nor denying the SEC’s charges.
“Ambit agreed to pay disgorgement and prejudgment interest totalling $30,910. Edelweiss agreed to pay $568,347. JM Financial agreed to pay $443,545 and Motilal agreed to pay $821,594,” the statement said.
