Distancing itself away from the Chanda Kochhar's conflict of interest case, the ICICI bank has denied the charges of violation of disclosure norms levelled by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).
ICICI bank was responding to a show cause notice issued by SEBI on 23rd May. The bank said that it was not aware of any conflict of interest and hence could not make any disclosure to the market regulator, which is mandatory under the listing regulations.
Business Standard has reported that in the show cause notice, the SEBI asked the bank to explain why it should not be charged for violation of the Listing Obligation and Disclosure Requirements (LODR) regulations in the Videocon loan matter. It was alleged that the bank failed to comply with the listing rules in with relates to its full-time directors.
Kochhar and her family members are facing allegations of quid pro quo and conflict of interest with respect to loan proceeds extended to certain entities, including the Videocon group.
Multiple agencies, including the CBI, are already probing the alleged lapses involving Kochhar and her family members.
In May, SEBI also initiated an enquiry against the bank and its managing director and chief executive officer Chanda Kocchar for an alleged conflict of interest.
"There is a full-length process for sanctioning corporate loans. In this case, the credit committee of ICICI bank in 2012 sanctioned its share of facilities to the Videocon group. She (Kochhar) was not the committee's chairperson. It was a 12-member committee headed by then Chairman KV Kamath," Business Standard reported.
The bank also informed the SEBI about the current status of the loan proceeds to Videocon's group which stood at Rs. 28.1 billion that has been classified as a non-performing asset (NPA) in 2017. For the moment, the bank is not keen on resolving the issue and is waiting for the Sri Krishan committee report.
