The 5 points of the investigation that the CNV initiated for the repurchase of public securities

• Call informative hearings for capital market agents, as well as their clients, whether individuals or companies.
• Collect and analyze information on operations carried out in the weeks before and after the government announcement.
• Exchange information with other state and/or regulatory agencies abroad, in order to access information that is beyond our reach. (For example, track those operations that have been settled in foreign markets)
• Collaborate and provide reports to the Judiciary and Legislative Power, if required.
• Check databases to determine if there were anomalous behaviors that could give indications of price manipulation maneuvers and/or use of privileged information in accordance with art. 117 of Law 26,831

The reason for the research

Massa asked the CNV to investigate the “possible leak of sensitive information regarding the government’s decision to repurchase debt in foreign currency.” In addition, he asked to find out about the existence of “speculative maneuvers in the purchase and sale of public securities”, with the aim of “manipulating the market and generating a rise in the prices of the parallel exchange rates”.

The average volume traded in MEP was around US$70 million per day, but the days before the official announcement of the bond repurchase amounted to US$100 million. They also registered movement in sureties, despite the fact that there were “high rates”. On the Wednesday of the announcement, dollar bonds had an average rise of 7%. For this reason, Massa’s second request was to identify “possible beneficiaries of these maneuvers.”

Given this, the CNV began to request information from the 10 main brokerage firms. They made the request for client files, their assets and even their tax affidavits. So that it can be a quick job, the “cutting of the universe” is done on the ten principal accounts that had the largest bond purchase operations between Monday 16 and Friday 20 January (three days before and two after Massa’s announcement).