Commodities insider trading? Scam seen

Industry body Assocham has suggested a thorough examination of trading in five key agri commodities -- guar seeds, turmeric, black pepper, soya beans and barley -- to check for their possible insider trading on the NCDEX terminals.

"The trade positions for each of the five agricultural commodities must be thoroughly examined to check for possible insider trading on the NCDEX terminals. The data analysis points towards price determination by a cartel, which might be hoarding and influencing the markets," Assocham said in a study released today.

It lay emphasis on passage of FCRA Bill for better regulation of "Futures Market".

The study "An Empirical analysis of Futures price and trading behaviour of select agri commodities in India" was released by Anil K Agarwal, former President Assocham along with P K Jain, Chairman, SMEs Council here.

It said "there is a possibility that cartels of speculative traders are moving from one market to the other indulging in price rigging/manipulation, which needs to be thoroughly examined.

"Additional margin and special margin, if needed must be immediately imposed on observation of any anomalous price behaviour," it said.

In 2011-12, the cartel did extensive price rigging/manipulation in Guar gum and Guar seed, it alleged.

During the last seven years the price of Guar seed had been in the range of Rs 30 per kg and Guar gum at Rs 75 per kg. However, during 2011-12 the cartel by price rigging raised the price of Guar seed to Rs 300 per kg and to Rs 900 per kg for Guar Gum, according to the study.

There is a need to take such blatant violations and exploitation seriously in agriculture commodities by filing cases under various laws including under Competition Commission of India and such Cartel must be put to pay exemplary cost and penalty for such a crime by manipulating and increasing prices of Agriculture Commodities, Agarwal said.

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