(Business in Cameroon) - As it struggles to attract investors, it was under the “sanction” section of the news that the Douala Stock Exchange made headlines in August 2013.

The Financial Markets Commission (FMC) published in Cameroon Tribune’s August 5, 2013 edition, a series of sanctions rendered against nine operators, eight of which are of the general banking sector UBA, BICEC, Banque Atlantique, SGBC, Afriland First Bank, Citibank, BMCE Capital, SCB Cameroun) and the Douala Stock Exchange (DSX). Overall, the reasons for the array of sanctions boiled down to “inadequacies and irregularities” noted in the handling of the State of Cameroon’s bond “ECMR net 5.6% 2010-2015”, launched in 2010, which led to 200 billion FCfa being raised for major public works financing.

DSX specifically was slapped with a 500,000 FCfa fine “for having, without the status of an investment services provider, provided investment services consisting of holding an order book in an issuance (centralisation of subscriptions).” For the FMC, this function is forbidden to any entity that is not an ISP. But there’s more. In addition to this fine, the FMC addressed a warning to DSX’s management “for their numerous instances of professional misconduct.”

Cameroon’s financial markets’ watchdog explicitly spoke of one of the directors’ insistence on “ignoring or going outside the realm of the management of the institution and the stock market operations, disregarding guidelines and recommendations of the FMC”. This was no doubt an allusion to the agreements concluded without the regulator’s blessing. According to Chief T.K. Ejangue, the FMC Chairman who signed these decisions as well as his Secretary General, Alphonsus Njiachomuna, the sanctions were imposed following hearings and a lengthy process “due to the complexity of the cases being examined.”  DSX has not made an official statement in response to the sanctions. “We do not comment on comments” a reliable source, who requested to remain anonymous, replied to the Ecofin Agency. “Is this the role of the FMC?” said the source with a dash of irony.