Jane Street Group LLC has come out strongly against the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), saying the regulator’s recent allegations about its trading activity are riddled with factual and legal inaccuracies. In an internal email sent to employees over the weekend, the global trading firm criticised SEBI’s interim order as being based on “many erroneous or unsupported assertions” and expressed its intent to challenge the charges.
The interim order, issued last Friday (July 4), accused Jane Street of engaging in “index manipulation” and temporarily barred the firm from participating in India’s securities markets. SEBI also announced plans to seize ₹48.4 billion (approximately $564 million), which it described as “unlawful gains.” According to SEBI, Jane Street made around $4.3 billion in overall trading profits in India between January 2023 and March 2025.
SEBI has not responded directly to Jane Street’s internal communication but defended its stance, saying its 105-page report lays out a clear prima facie case with comprehensive evidence and analysis. The report claims Jane Street manipulated prices on the expiry day of index options tied to the Nifty Bank Index by aggressively trading in both cash and derivatives markets. It accuses the firm of placing large bearish options bets and profiting off the resulting price moves.
Jane Street categorically denied any wrongdoing. “We reject the premise and the substance of the Order in the strongest possible terms,” the firm told employees, adding that it was deeply troubling to see the company’s actions misrepresented. The email described SEBI’s language as “inflammatory” and argued that the regulator had fundamentally misunderstood the nature of the firm’s trading practices, reports Bloomberg.
Jane Street, however, called this a misinterpretation of legitimate arbitrage activity. The firm said it was merely attempting to bridge a significant price gap between the Nifty Bank Index in the stock market and its corresponding derivatives on January 17, 2024. This kind of trading, it argued, is common across global financial markets and plays a key role in aligning the pricing of related instruments.
Jane Street also pushed back against SEBI’s claims that it ignored warnings from the regulator and Indian stock exchanges. The firm said it had been engaging with SEBI since August 2024 and even paused trading operations in February 2025 to address concerns raised in letters from two exchanges. Senior executives from Hong Kong and New York had flown to Mumbai for discussions and implemented changes to the firm’s strategy, it said.
Despite these efforts, Jane Street alleged that SEBI failed to respond to multiple attempts to continue dialogue. “Since February, we have made ongoing efforts to communicate with SEBI and have been consistently rebuffed,” the firm said in the email. “In the absence of participants like Jane Street, there would be no economic link between the Indian derivatives market and the underlying economy,” it said.