KARACHI: An extraordinary meeting of the board of Pakistan Stock Exchange was held on Monday where the directors huddled together to deliberate on the developments over the weekend.

The focus of debate was the detention of the PSX chairman, Hussain Lawai, by the FIA.

A person in the knowledge of things said that the members also considered the news of the Supreme Court order pertaining to the placing of names of heads of three banks on the Exit Control List (ECL) due to their possible involvement in some hanky-panky.

The board was said to be of the view that it should keep any action on the matter of Mr Lawai in abeyance as no instructions were received from the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan and the action against Mr Lawai had nothing to do with PSX, but was some unresolved issue with another bank.

The relevant laws did not prevent a person from holding the office of the chairman of PSX until he was convicted or he voluntarily resigned. Since nothing of the sort had happened, the board decided to wait and watch.

Meanwhile, for each of the future meetings of the board an alternate member from among the independent directors would be requested to take the chair. The board is constituted of 15 members: seven independent directors including the bourse’s chairman; three stockbroker directors, four the Chinese majority investors in the PSX equity and the exchange’s managing director.

The Chinese members were said to have taken scant interest in the proceedings, which was ascribed to the fact that they considered themselves as long-term investors in the Pakistan equity market.The board was also seen to have viewed with concern the market meltdown and persistent foreign selling. There were suggestions of assuming a pro-active role aimed at reaching out to the caretaker government.

Summit Bank functioning normal: The State Bank of Pakistan in a statement issued on Monday said that the instructions provided in the Supreme Court’s order during the proceedings of Human Rights Case No. 39216-G of 2018, in no way pertain to the regular operations of the Summit Bank and affect the depositors money.

“The said bank is working in normal manner and meeting its obligations towards depositors. All rumours circulating in the media, particularly social media, about the Summit Bank are baseless and misleading. The public in general and depositors of the Summit Bank, in particular, are advised not to pay attention to such rumours,” the central bank said.

It reiterates its commitment to safeguard the interest of depositors and stability of the banking system of the country. Further, it reassures that country’s banking sector is stable and strong.

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2018