KARACHI, Nov 25: After nearly 30 months, the issue of Pakistan’s fourth stock exchange — PEX Limited — has come back to life as the Karachi Stock Exchange on Tuesday, withdrew its case for a stay order against PEX.

Leaving the legal jargon alone, which is difficult to understand and more so to interpret, knowledgeable sources suggest that the dramatic developments took place in the High Court of Sindh after the defendant Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) pleaded to the Court that the application be disposed of, as “the present stalemate was not helping” in the resolution of the issue, and that the Regulator would look into the case afresh (not the exact words, but something to that effect). In response, the counsel for the plaintiff (KSE) Khalid Anwar, who had lodged the suit against SECP, filed a statement saying that he “does not press this suit”, which resulted in an Order of the dismissal of the case.

As experts, brokers and analysts were pouring over the thick bunch of papers till late in the evening on Friday, each appeared to interpret the matter in accordance with their own understanding. The main question was: Does that mean that PEX can now go ahead with its setting up of the Electronic Communication Network (ECN), an alternative trading system, to the existing three stock exchanges in the country? The registration for ECN was granted to PEX in February of the year 2003 by the then SECP chairman Khalid Mirza. Sympathizers to PEX affirmed that such was the case or that at least the development went squarely in favour of the sponsors of PEX.

But a senior member of the stock broker community which had taken up cudgels against Mr Mirza for what they saw as granting the licence “in haste”, said that the PEX registration had been “revoked by implication”. He contended that in order for any new exchange to be set up, a due process of law would have to be followed, which included announcement of a policy; specification of the process; seeking public opinion; invitation of applications and finally granting the licence to a party on merit. It was quite late in the evening on Friday to give a waking call to SECP chairman Dr Tariq Hassan for his comments, but there is time enough for obviously the matter would be a subject of heated debates over the next many days.