Special tribunal for stockmarket starts working

The much-awaited special tribunal for the capital market recently began its judicial functions to quickly dispose of stockmarket related cases.

On Sunday, the court began its activities by hearing the case against Mahbub Sarwar, which was filed by Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission in 2010. Justice Humayun Kabir heard the arguments.

The allegation was that Sarwar disseminated false information on the share market through Facebook and many general investors were misled by it.

The tribunal is located on the ninth floor at Bangladesh House Building Finance Corporation in Purana Paltan.

Market stakeholders have long been demanding for a special tribunal to set up.

Due to long-pending cases, listed companies sometimes cannot declare dividends or make corporate disclosures.

Whenever the securities regulator imposes fines on any listed company, investor or manipulator, they go to the High Court to challenge the order, negating its efficacy.

Some 500 cases have been filed against companies, investors and manipulators with the courts since 1996, according to data from the regulator.

Of the cases, the much-anticipated ones are those 15 criminal cases filed against the suspected manipulators who were involved in the 1996 share market scam and the two cases that were lodged for the price debacle in 2010-11.

After recommendations from a probe report on the stockmarket crash of 2011, the Securities and Exchange Ordinance 1969 was amended in parliament in November 2012, empowering the government to set up special tribunals to try such cases.