NSE: 11 companies receive N48m fine for infractions

A total of 11 companies listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) have been sanctioned and asked to pay fines to the tune of N48 million in 2020.

Most of the infractions committed by the affected firms were on the late submission of their financial statements to the exchange for the use of the investing public.

According to data from the NSE, the first company to get into the book of wrongdoers was Access Bank Plc as it was slammed with a fine of N2.2 million for N2.2 million for unauthorised publication of notice of board meeting and closed period.

The issue involved the bank announcing a closed period and later cancelled it. When the closed period was reversed, its group managing director, Mr Herbert Wigwe, traded some of his shares in the company and this created rancour in the market.

Another company fined by the stock exchange was Greif Nigeria and this was for submitting its audited 2019 results for the year ended October 2019 in February 2020. The firm received a fine of N500,000 for this action.

Also, Deap Capital Management & Trust, which has its fiscal year ending in September, failed to file its audited 2019 reports on time and it was fined N3.8 million after doing the right thing in February, which the NSE believed was the wrong time. In addition, it received another N1.7 million fine for releasing its Q2 2020 results in July 2020, amounting to a total fine of N5.5 million.

In the same vein, Thomas Wyatt Nigeria received a fine of N700,000 for filing its third-quarter results for 2019 in February 2020, while Ellah Lakes was knocked with a N200,000 hammer for submitting its 2020 second-quarter results in March 2020.

African Alliance Insurance was punished by the NSE for filing its 2019 audited reports in July and this came with a N3.2 million fine. The underwriting firm was further fined N2.5 million for late submission of its first-quarter results for 2020, which it eventually did in July and another N400,000 for filing its Q2 2020 earnings in August.

Also, Conoil was hit with a sanction worth N400,000 for filing its Q2 2020 results in August.

The NSE fined Universal Insurance N3.2 million for submitting its Q1 2020 earnings in July, another N3.2 million for submitting its Q1 2020 earnings in July and N400,000 for filing the Q2 2020 results in August.

LASACO Assurance was fined N4.4 million for late submission of its audited 2019 reports with an additional N4.4 million fine for late filing of its first quarter of 2020 earnings and N1.7 million for filing the second quarter of 2020 earnings late. All the three results were submitted by the firm to the exchange in August.

Also, eTranzact International was slammed with a N1.9 million fine in the period under consideration for releasing its Q2 2020 earnings in August, while Royal Exchange was fined N5.4 billion for filing its audited 2019 results in February, another N5.4 million for submitting its Q1 2020 earnings in February and N2.6 million for releasing its Q2 2020 results in August, amounting to a total of N13.4 million fine.