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SEC imposes restrictions on 2,436 BO accounts

Sarwar A Chowdhury
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) yesterday imposed restrictions on 2,436 beneficiary owner's (BO) accounts as a preliminary investigation found the accounts shoddy and suspicious.
Under the restrictions, share sales and transactions cannot be done from these 2,436 shoddy BO accounts until further notice.
The capital market watchdog investigation also found that a single mailing address was used for all the BO accounts. Moreover a single bank was used for opening these BO accounts.
All the BO accounts were used during Premier Bank's initial public offering (IPO) in March last year.
The address used for opening all the BO accounts is 137, Tejgaon Industrial Area. An instant visit by this correspondent to the address found Total Fashion Wear, a garment factory with around 150 to 200 workers currently employed.
More than 1,000 bank account numbers, opened in different branches of Al Arafah Islami Bank, were used to open 2,436 BO accounts, said Farhad Ahmed, executive directorofSEC.
It is mandatory to mention a bank account number, the branch name and a BO account number in case of applying for shares in IPO. On the other hand, it is also mandatory to mention a bank
account number and the branch of a bank while opening a BO account.
Ahmed said the commission's primary investigation, which was done in the last six months, found that these accounts were not opened legally. "Until further order, no shares can be sold or trans-ferred from these BO accounts, which are now subject to enforcement action or further enquiry by the SEC," he said.
"We will start further investigation of the matter and try to identify who is/are behind it," he said.
Of the 2436 BO accounts, 2357 were opened though Anwar Securities, while 36 through Tareque Ibrahim and Co, 26 through Lankabangla Securities, 13 through SES Companies and 4 through Total Communications.
False information use in opening BO accounts is a violation of securities laws.
"If proven, the punishment could be in two ways -- civil or criminal. In case of civil, the maximum punishment isTk 10 lakh penalty, while in case of criminal the maximum punishment is 5 years jail or financial penalty or both," Ahmed said.
Presently, there are around 15 lakh BO accounts. There are also allegations that many of the BO accounts were opened with illegal procedures and used in IPOs.
sarwar@thedailystar.net