An employee of ICICI Lombard General Insurance Co. inadvertently uploaded undisclosed information about third quarter earnings as a personal WhatsApp status, days ahead of the planned release.
The designated person, who broadcast the information after market hours on Friday, deleted the “status” within an hour, the unit of ICICI Bank Ltd. said in a stock exchange filing on Saturday (10 January 2026). ICICI Lombard said it has started an internal inquiry, as per rules of India’s securities market regulator.
It was the latest such mishap in India’s $5.2 trillion stock market, Hatsun Agro Product Ltd. flagged a similar case of an employee accidentally leaking a draft of quarterly results on WhatsApp.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India has over the years tightened rules involving handling of unpublished information by employees of listed firms, including directing companies to create a framework for tracking ownership of such data. While the incidents have been isolated, they reignite concerns over insider trading and information leaks in the world’s fifth-largest stock market.
A string of alleged leaks of company earnings on WhatsApp groups in 2017 triggered a SEBI investigation. At the time, SEBI directed companies—including HDFC Bank Ltd., Tata Motors Ltd. and Axis Bank Ltd.—to investigate leaks of their financials on social media platforms.
