Informist, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025

By Anjana Therese Antony

MUMBAI – Jane Street Wednesday said it has filed an appeal in the Securities Appellate Tribunal against the Securities and Exchange Board of India, saying the market regulator has not shared all relevant documents relating to the market manipulation allegations against the US-based proprietary trading firm.

"While this appeal concerns a procedural detail of the broader matter, it's the first legal step that Jane Street has taken in this process," a Jane Street spokesperson said in a response to an emailed query from Informist after Reuters reported that the firm had moved the tribunal.

Jane Street has sought all the information relating to the National Stock Exchange's investigation in November and the probe carried out by SEBI's Integrated Surveillance Department in December. "As a result of those investigations, the ISD (Integrated Surveillance Department) issued a report, much of which Jane Street has been able to review in discovery," the trading firm said.

In July, SEBI had barred four entities of the Jane Street Group from participating in India's securities market over allegations of index manipulation. In the interim order, SEBI had also directed the impounding of INR 48.44 billion from the four entities. The regulator had said it had found the Jane Street entities to have made unlawful gains by manipulating the cash and derivatives markets. These entities infused large amount of funds in constituents of the benchmark Nifty 50 index and the sectoral Nifty Bank index to manipulate prices in options contracts.

During the regulator's inspection in August, there were several communications between the NSE and SEBI as evidenced by certain "handwritten notes", yet SEBI had refused to disclose these emails and their attachments despite requests, Jane Street said in its appeal to the tribunal.

Citing the report of SEBI's Integrated Surveillance Department, the trading entity said that in more than 90% of the time periods assessed, it could not be established that the trading activity of Jane Street Group has "attributed to the price movement of the constituents/index in a way which has benefited the open positions of other group members in derivative segment". It also said the same report found that the profit pattern of Jane Street entities contradicted any theory of manipulation.

Although index prices moved in favour of the group entities' positions in the options segment, the resulting profits were negligible in the context of the Jane Street entities' other trading, it said, citing the surveillance department's report. This conclusion is contradictory to the central premise of SEBI's interim order yet does not appear in the order itself, Jane Street said. "...the Interim Order appears to rest on the premise that our trading was intended to impact index prices in favor of Jane Street's options positions, which the NSE and ISD reports reject."

It also said the set of documents made available for Jane Street's inspection included only part of the surveillance department's report and left out an annexure. "This annexure is among the documents Jane Street is appealing to inspect." End

Edited by Rajeev Pai

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