SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean prosecutors have indicted BNP Paribas SA for breaching short-selling trade rules in the domestic stock market, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing sources.
BNP Paribas was one of two companies the country’s Financial Supervisory Service filed complaints about to prosecutors in December, after the market watchdog found illegal trade practices by foreign firms and imposed fines on them.
A spokesperson for the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office said one firm was indicted last week for violating short-selling rules but declined to name it.
BNP Paribas SA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In South Korea, naked short-selling of stocks, or selling stocks without borrowing them first or determining they can be borrowed, is banned by the Capital Markets Act.
In July, the country’s financial regulator imposed record-high fines on two subsidiaries of the former Credit Suisse group for their short-selling breaches.
South Korea’s financial authorities imposed a market-wide ban on short-selling in November 2023, after they found illicit trading practices by foreign firms, and plan to lift the ban in March 2025 when they expect to have a system ready to detect such trades.
(Reporting by Jihoon Lee; Editing by Ed Davies)
