Quite. From Business Line:
The call to tighten the norms relating to personal transactions comes in the wake of the SEBI penalising an employee of HDFC AMC for tipping off his close associates about the substantial buying and selling pattern of the AMC so that they could place their orders ahead of the AMC. These associates could square off their positions within the same trading session even as the AMC's orders were coming, thereby making huge profits.In 2007, a dealer from UTI securities was found guilty of customised front-running in the Ballarpur Industries stock in collusion with employees of two other brokerages and a select group of clients.
...
The market is rife with cases of front-running thanks to the magnitude of inside information that participants possess and wish to cash-in on.
Not very surprised. I know inside tips emanate outwards from Mumbai. Just learnt last night from my friendly adviser that a stock recommended by her was a heavily manipulated one and that was the reason she suggested it to me :-)
