The SEBI Insider Trading Regulations prohibit trading in securities whilst in possession of unpublished price sensitive information (UPSI). It also states that when a person holds UPSI and trades in securities, his trades would be ‘presumed’ to have been motivated by the knowledge and awareness of such information in his possession.

Given that the burden of proof is on the insider to establish that his trade was not motivated by awareness of such information, the Regulations to provide statutory defences for the insider to prove his innocence. The stated defences, which are illustrative in nature, however, do not include a circumstance where a person has received UPSI and relied on it to make a trade under the assumption that it is publicly available information. The ‘innocent recipient’ was proposed as a statutory defence in the NK Sodhi High Level Committee Report, but did not find its way into the final form of the amended regulations. This defence was meant to be available if the recipient had no reason to believe that the information in his possession was UPSI or the person who communicated it to him violated any law or confidentiality obligation. As per the report, the insider would need to prove that he did everything reasonably in his power to confirm that the information in his possession was not UPSI (i.e. exercise of diligence expected of a reasonable man) and that he traded bona fide.
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