The National Stock Exchange (NSE) has withdrawn its Rs 100 crore defamation suit against Moneywise Media Pvt Ltd, publisher of the fortnightly magazine Moneylife, and its founders Debashis Basu and Sucheta Dalal..The defamation case relates to a letter published by Moneylife (available here) in early 2015, which blew the whistle on NSE’s practice of favouring certain brokers by enabling them to get market price information ahead of rest of the market using NSE’s co-location facility set up for high-frequency trading..NSE moved the Bombay High Court on July 21, 2015 to stop the publication and circulation of the article and also asked the magazine to offer an unconditional apology. Justice Gautam Patel, after hearing the matter, had imposed “severe strictures” and a Rs 50 lakh penalty on the exchange. NSE had filed an appeal against the order in the division bench..However, on Tuesday, NSE told the division bench comprising Justice ZA Haq and Justice Naresh Patil that it would honour the judgement of Justice Patel and withdraw appeal in the defamation case. NSE paid Rs 1.5 lakh each to the two founders, and Rs 47 lakh to two charitable trusts, Tata Memorial Hospital and the Masina Hospital as per the September 9 order of Justice Patel..At the appeal stage, while team Moneylife was (pro-bono) represented by Senior Counsel Janak Dwarkadas, his mentor, Senior Counsel Iqbal Chagla represented NSE..Dwarkadas was assisted by Sharan Jagtiani and Nirman Sharma, backed by solicitors, Veritas Legal, led by Rahul Dwarkadas and team member Areez Guzder.
The National Stock Exchange (NSE) has withdrawn its Rs 100 crore defamation suit against Moneywise Media Pvt Ltd, publisher of the fortnightly magazine Moneylife, and its founders Debashis Basu and Sucheta Dalal..The defamation case relates to a letter published by Moneylife (available here) in early 2015, which blew the whistle on NSE’s practice of favouring certain brokers by enabling them to get market price information ahead of rest of the market using NSE’s co-location facility set up for high-frequency trading..NSE moved the Bombay High Court on July 21, 2015 to stop the publication and circulation of the article and also asked the magazine to offer an unconditional apology. Justice Gautam Patel, after hearing the matter, had imposed “severe strictures” and a Rs 50 lakh penalty on the exchange. NSE had filed an appeal against the order in the division bench..However, on Tuesday, NSE told the division bench comprising Justice ZA Haq and Justice Naresh Patil that it would honour the judgement of Justice Patel and withdraw appeal in the defamation case. NSE paid Rs 1.5 lakh each to the two founders, and Rs 47 lakh to two charitable trusts, Tata Memorial Hospital and the Masina Hospital as per the September 9 order of Justice Patel..At the appeal stage, while team Moneylife was (pro-bono) represented by Senior Counsel Janak Dwarkadas, his mentor, Senior Counsel Iqbal Chagla represented NSE..Dwarkadas was assisted by Sharan Jagtiani and Nirman Sharma, backed by solicitors, Veritas Legal, led by Rahul Dwarkadas and team member Areez Guzder.