The Mauritius financial market regulator, the Financial Services Commission has clarified that the offshore fund at the heart of contention of the Hindenburg Research targeting SEBI chief and Adani Group is not domiciled in Mauritius.

The report of Hindenburg said ‘”IPE Plus Fund” Is A Small Offshore Mauritius Fund’ and ‘IPE Plus Fund 1, a fund registered in Mauritius’.

“We wish to clarify that IPE Plus Fund and IPE Plus Fund 1 are not licensees of the FSC and are not domiciled in Mauritius,” said FSC in a statement on Wednesday.

Last Saturday, the US-based short seller Hindenburg published a report on its website claiming that the SEBI Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch had stakes in Bermuda and Mauritius-based offshore funds used by Gautam Adani’s brother Vinod Adani “to amass and trade large positions in shares of the Adani Group.

In response, Buch and her husband Dhaval Buch in a joint statement on Sunday said the investments were made in 2015, well before her appointment as a whole-time member of SEBI in 2017 and the subsequent elevation as chairperson in March 2022. The investment was in capacity as “private citizens living in Singapore”. These funds became “dormant” on her appointment in SEBI, it said.

On Wednesday, Mauritius market regulator said the Financial Services Commission, Mauritius has taken cognizance of the contents of the report published by Hindenburg Research on August 10 wherein mention has been made of ‘Mauritius-based shell entities’ and Mauritius as a ‘tax haven’.

The FSC wishes to highlight that the legislative framework in Mauritius does not permit creation of shell companies. Mauritius has a robust framework for global business companies. All global business companies licensed by the FSC have to meet substance requirements on an ongoing basis and this is strictly monitored by the FSC, it said.

Moreover, FSC said Mauritius strictly complies with international best practices and has been rated as compliant with the standards of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”).

As per the peer review conducted by the OECD Forum on Harmful Tax Practices, the OECD is satisfied that Mauritius does not have any harmful features in its tax regimes. Therefore, Mauritius cannot be termed as a tax haven, it said.