An Indian appeals court directed the country’s securities regulator to respond to allegations made by Jane Street Group LLC that it withheld documents that are crucial to the US trading giant’s defense in a market manipulation case.
The Securities Appellate Tribunal on Tuesday asked the Securities and Exchange Board of India to reply within three weeks to Jane Street’s claims. A lawyer for the regulator claimed that no further documents beyond those already given to Jane Street need to be shared, since the probe is still underway.
SAT sets next hearing for Nov 18 in case
The tribunal said it will hear arguments in the case on Nov. 18. The regulator told the court that the US firm will be allowed to respond to the July 3 interim order — accusing Jane Street of manipulating a bank-stock index to benefit its options bets — after the next hearing.
The deferral extends a closely watched legal battle in global finance, pitting one of Wall Street’s most successful trading firms against the regulator of the world’s largest exchange-traded derivatives market. For SEBI, Jane Street’s pending response likely hurts progress in completing the investigation and issuing an order to confirm its initial findings.
Jane Street seeks access to SEBI–NSE emails, whistleblower exchanges
“SEBI’s investigation won’t be impacted but its confirmatory order will get delayed,” said Akshaya Bhansali, managing partner at Mindspright Legal.
Jane Street is seeking access to emails between the regulator and the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. related to the investigation, but SEBI has denied the request on grounds the exchanges were inter-regulator communications, court documents reviewed by Bloomberg show.
The New York-based firm also wants a copy of email exchanges between SEBI Member Ananth Narayan and a Dubai-based hedge fund trader Mayank Bansal, who is widely reported to have alerted the market watchdog about Jane Street’s trades.
SEBI, represented by Vidhii Partners, argued that the investigation is at a critical stage and it would not share documents that it has not relied on or that are relevant to the probe. The regulator claimed in the court that it has shared 10 gigabytes of data and documents with the trading firm.
Jane Street, which has already deposited ₹48,400 crore in what SEBI described as illegal gains to comply with the regulator’s directives, said it is not appealing against the initial order but making a plea to have a full and fair access to documents.
SAT must decide which documents can be shared mid-investigation
“SAT will need to decide the relevant documents that can be shared with Jane Street while SEBI’s investigation is going on,” Mindspright’s Bhansali said.
The firm has also argued that the regulator’s surveillance department had already reviewed its trading activity and in December found no evidence of manipulation. The NSE reached similar findings a month prior.
India’s derivatives market has become a hotspot for global high-speed trading firms after volumes soared in the years following the pandemic thanks to an influx of millions of new individual traders. Retail traders lost about $12 billion dabbling in futures and options in fiscal 2025, a SEBI report showed earlier this year, mainly to sophisticated trading firms.
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