The management of the Croatian Financial Services Supervisory Agency (HANFA) established on Wednesday that the Hungarian oil company MOL had manipulated the market, contrary to a ban from Article 465 of the Capital Market Act.
HANFA said in a statement that MOL had manipulated the market with its general offer for the purchase of stock in Croatian oil company INA, published on 15 December 2010, and later through the media, by deliberately spreading information which gave false and misleading signals for the purpose of acquiring INA stock.
HANFA found that with its general offer MOL proclaimed and stated a number of times that the purpose of acquiring INA stock was to give incumbent and former employees, as well as private persons who had purchased INA stock in an initial public offering, another chance to sell the stock to MOL, at a price significantly higher than on the market, which, according to HANFA, constituted information that gave false and misleading signals regarding trading in INA stock.
As the biggest stockholder in INA and as an informed investor, MOL knew that, the statement said, adding that the model and price at which MOL acquired INA stock after the offer indicated that its basic goal, including with the public offer, was to raise its share in INA to more than 50 per cent, although it did not state so when publishing the general offer.
HANFA is continuing to supervise trading in INA shares, the statement said.
