Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund, which closed six schemes in April 2020, has said that so far there had been no adverse findings against the fund house or its employees or management.
This comes following reports of markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) issuing show-cause notices to the fund house and its officials with regard to the fund house’s practices around risk management, inter-scheme transfers and personal transactions by employees and management, among others.
“We have submitted detailed responses to show-cause notices issued by SEBI,” Sanjay Sapre, President, Franklin Templeton Asset Management (India) Pvt. Ltd., said in a letter to investors. “We cannot go into details of our responses, but we believe that we acted in compliance with applicable regulations and rules and that we have strong defences to the allegation,” he added.
With respect to the accusations regarding personal transactions of employees and management, the fund house said it took such matters seriously. Personal redemptions by certain individuals before the winding-up decision are under review and those individuals have cooperated fully with that process and submitted detailed responses to SEBI, which are under consideration, Mr. Sapre said in the letter on Friday.
He further said “the schemes under winding-up continue to have significant investment from employees and management of Franklin Templeton”.
He said these issues remained under regulatory review, and “we are constrained from commenting on specific details at this juncture, but can confirm that to date, there have been no adverse findings against Franklin Templeton, its employees or management”.
Published - March 13, 2021 10:36 pm IST
