Satyam scam: Sebi bans Raju for 14 yrs

More than five years after the Satyam scam surfaced, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Tuesday passed an order directing B Ramalinga Raju, ex-chairman of Satyam Computer Services, his brother and ex-MD, B Rama Raju, along with three other senior colleagues to disgorge unlawful gains amounting to Rs 1,848.90000000 from sale and pledging of shares on the basis of unpublished price sensitive information that they were privy to. The payments, to be made in the next 45 days, will also have an additional component of interest on the entire amount at a simple interest of 12% per annum beginning January 2009. The order passed by Rajeev Kumar Agarwal, whole time member at Sebi, also barred the five individuals from accessing or dealing in the securities market for a period of 14 years. “I direct the noticees to disgorge the wrongful gain made by them from their contraventions, with simple interest at the rate 12% per annum from January 7, 2009 till the date of payment. They shall pay the said amounts within 45 days from the date of this order,” the order said. While the American shareholders of Satyam sought recourse under the class-action lawsuit in US and got an aggregate of $125 million from the company in 2011, the Indian shareholders have, till date, not received any compensation for their losses on account of sharp decline in share price of the company after Raju’s admittance to the fraud. The order noted that the regulator issued the last show cause notice in the case on April 30, 2014 and called Ramalinga Raju, Rama Raju, Vadlamani Srinivas (ex-CFO), G Ramakrishna (ex-VP finance) and VS Prabhakara Gupta (ex-internal audit head) for personal hearing on May 12, 2014.