R.T Briscoe, 38 others sanctioned over failure to file financial statements

R.T Briscoe, one of Nigeria’s leading auto marketing conglomerates and 39 other companies quoted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange have been sanctioned by the NSE over failures to file their financial statements for consecutive years.

The companies have failed to comply with minimum listing standards of the bourse as some of them have consistently failed to file their audited financial statements since 2017.

In the NSE’s X-Compliance report is designed to maintain market integrity and protect investors by providing compliance-related information on all listed companies, the defaulting companies were fined N1bn cumulatively with R.T Briscoe getting a N53.4 million over its failure to turn in its audited report since 2018 to the exchange.

Conoil Plc was fined N800,000, FTN Cocoa Processors was fined N50.3 million, Juli Plc, Omatek Ventures, Royal Insurance, Union Dicon, and Niger Insurance were slapped with N151.2 million, N537.2 million, N22.3 million, N27.5 million,  and N84.2 million fines respectively among others for similar defaults.

Deap Capital was fined the sum of N5.5 million for default in the filing of its 2019 audited account.

Some of the sanctioned companies, like NGC, DN Tyre, Union Homes Savings & Loans, and Aso Savings & Loans have not sent their 2014 – 2019 audited results to the exchange. While Omatek, Evans, Unic Diversified, Juli, Anino, Multi-Trex have failed to file their results since 2015.

Roads, Staco Insurance, Goldlink, FTN Cocoa, Capital Oil, Guinea Insurance, Resort Savings, Standard Alliance Insurance, International Energy Insurance fall in the category of firms that have not submitted their 2017 and 2018 reports, respectively.

A regulatory report obtained from the NSE flagged the deficient companies with warning codes that indicated various degrees of corporate governance weaknesses, susceptibility to illiquidity, and price manipulation due to inadequate price discovery.

Companies that are listed on The Exchange are required to adhere to high disclosure standards which are prescribed in the Rulebook of The Exchange, 2015 (Issuers’ Rules), and other Rules of The Exchange, from time to time.

Financial information which is periodic disclosure, as well as ongoing material information disclosure should be released to The Exchange in a timely manner to enable it to efficiently perform its function of maintaining an orderly market.