US Firm Jane Street Deposits Rs 4,843 Crore as Directed by SEBI: Reports

Mumbai – U.S.-based trading giant Jane Street Group has reportedly deposited ?4,843.50 crore into an escrow account, as mandated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), after being barred from trading in Indian markets over alleged manipulative practices.

Earlier this month, SEBI prohibited the New York-headquartered firm from participating in Indian stock markets until it complied with the directive to deposit the specified amount. According to multiple reports on Monday, Jane Street has now fulfilled this requirement. Neither SEBI nor Jane Street have officially commented on the development yet.

In its interim order, SEBI accused Jane Street of deliberately manipulating market indices through a series of trades that it claimed had no "plausible economic rationale." The regulator highlighted what it called “intra-day index manipulation,” specifically pointing to unhedged, aggressive positions in Nifty Bank options and related instruments.

SEBI characterized the firm’s actions as “non-neutral trading behaviour,” indicating a deliberate strategy to influence market prices rather than participate in normal trading activity. The regulator described the tactic as a form of “marking the close” — a trading strategy where large buy or sell orders are placed near the market’s closing time to artificially affect the end-of-day price.

Jane Street, a proprietary trading firm that trades using its own capital, allegedly earned profits of ?32,681 crore through these manipulations, which were reportedly repatriated overseas.

According to SEBI’s preliminary findings, the firm employed an extended version of the “marking the close” strategy — driving up prices with large end-of-day trades, then quickly selling off those positions to cash in on the artificially inflated prices, leading to price crashes that hurt other investors.

Jane Street has strongly denied SEBI’s allegations. In response to the interim order, the firm stated: “We reject the premise and the substance of the order in the strongest possible terms.”

SEBI’s full investigation is expected to continue over the next 6 to 9 months, after which a final report and show-cause notice will be issued to Jane Street.

With inputs from IANS