How SEBI Tracked Down an Insider Trader

A former Wipro executive allegedly profited from insider information when Infosys announced its largest deal

- Jas Bardia & Varun Sood

Big deals at information technology (IT) services companies guarantee big money annually. More so, if the deal value is over $1 billion. And when announced, they could lead to a bump up in stock prices.

Infosys, for instance, bagged a 10-year deal valued at $1.89 billion from Vanguard, an American investment company, on 14 July 2020. Before the deal was announced, the shares of India's second largest IT exporter were trading at ₹792.95 a piece. Prices rose nearly 5% to ₹830.95 after market hours on 15 July.

So, what happens when employees, 'insiders' in a company, pass on such big ticket deal information to friends and family before they are made public?

This is the story of two friends working in two rival IT giants in Bengaluru. One is a chartered accountant (CA) by training and the other, an engineer. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), India's market regulator, found the duo guilty of profiting from information that is not publicly available—in other words, insider trading—and has banned them from the securities market for a year.

Friends Among Rivals

The two central characters of this story are Keyur Maniar and Ramit Chaudhri.

Both worked at Wipro, India's fourth largest IT services company, between March 2012 and December 2014. Maniar served as Chaudhri's reporting boss. The two became friends and their friendship continued even after Chaudhri joined Infosys.

While Maniar was a senior vice president at Wipro at the time, Ramit Chaudhri started working with Infosys BPM, a subsidiary of Infosys.

Maniar was part of a Wipro team that bid for the Vanguard contract mentioned above.