The BSEC has slapped a combined Tk35.92 lakh fine on CBC Capital, a corporate provident fund, and three individuals for artificially inflating Lovello Ice-Cream shares.
TBS Report
17 October, 2026, 10:00 pm
Last modified: 17 October, 2026, 10:04 pm
The Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) has imposed a cumulative fine of Tk35.92 lakh on merchant bank CBC Capital and Equity Management Ltd, a corporate provident fund, and three individuals for alleged series trading and price manipulation of Taufika Foods and Lovello Ice-Cream PLC shares.
According to enforcement orders issued on 13 October 2026, the penalties followed an investigation by the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) into suspicious trading between 26 May and 30 June 2025. During the period, Lovello's share price rose 25% to Tk98.60 from Tk78.90.
The DSE investigation found that CBC Capital operated an interconnected network of beneficiary owner (BO) accounts alongside Zhuang Lifeng, owner of Liz Fashion Industry Ltd. The network comprised CBC Capital, Liz Fashion Industry Ltd Employees Contributory Provident Fund (ECPF), Liz Fashion's head of finance, HM Rubaiyat, his wife, Shayla Akter, and the company's deputy general manager of planning, Rajan Kumar Saha.
Together, they accounted for 22.30% of Lovello's total market trading volume during the period. The investigation found that the group executed 13 matched, circular transactions involving 967,125 shares to artificially inflate trading volume and drive up the share price. The transactions generated a realised capital gain of Tk2.24 crore and an unrealised gain of Tk1.95 crore.
Among the penalised parties, Liz Fashion ECPF received the highest fine of Tk14.66 lakh, while CBC Capital was fined Tk7.50 lakh. Individual penalties were Tk6.82 lakh for HM Rubaiyat, Tk4.94 lakh for Shayla Akter and Tk2 lakh for Rajan Kumar Saha.
The regulator cited two violations of the Securities and Exchange Ordinance, 1969. Each party was fined Tk1 lakh for executing matched trades that created a false or misleading appearance of active trading. Additional penalties were imposed for conducting a series of transactions intended to artificially inflate the share price for financial gain.
During the enforcement hearings, the respondents sought to distance themselves from the alleged manipulation, citing the delegation of discretionary portfolio management to merchant bank managers, unfamiliarity with capital market laws or temporary absence from the country for religious pilgrimages.
CBC Capital's board of directors also asserted that the transactions were carried out without the necessary authorisation from its suspended chief executive officer.
The commission rejected these arguments, ruling that account holders and corporate boards could not evade their statutory compliance obligations. It ordered all penalised parties to pay their respective fines through bank drafts within 30 days.