Central bank says punishes for driving share price up via Telegram

MOSCOW, Mar 10 (PRIME) -- The central bank has detected non-market transactions with the shares of power grid company Rosseti South after coordinated efforts to boost the share price via messenger Telegram, Valery Lyakh, head of the malpractice prevention department, told reporters on Wednesday.

"The Central Bank of Russia detected non-market transactions on the stock market with Rosseti South on Friday at 4:00 p.m., Moscow time,” Lyakh said.

“This non-market pricing continued for about 30 minutes, and after detection, the automatic situation center systems started to look for a reason. Telegram channels where information to get involved in coordinated actions aimed at boosting the share volatility was disseminated were found."

He said that the people who initiated the activities were also detected, the trading accounts of several people who made the transactions or organized them were blocked.

The central bank earlier sent notifications to block accounts to seven professional market participants. On Tuesday, the authority notified Sberbank, VTB, Tinkoff Bank, Alfa-Bank, BCS, Otkritie Broker and Aton of suspension of trade deals of several clients to prevent market manipulations and that 60 accounts were blocked.

Rosseti South increased by 6.73% to 4.995 kopecks at 4:00 p.m., March 5.

(74.2640 rubles – U.S. $1)

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