Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has notified a stricter set of insider trading norms to check illicit transactions in shares of listed firms by management personnel and connected persons. The new norms, which will revamp nearly two-decade old regulations on insider trading and come into effect after four months, would also ensure that genuine trades are not impacted. Besides, greater clarity on concepts and definitions has been put in place along with a stronger legal and enforcement framework for prevention of insider trading under the new set of norms, to be called the Sebi (Prohibition of Insider Trading) Regulations, 2015.Sebi has expanded the definition of 'Insider' to include persons connected on the basis of being in any contractual, fiduciary or employment relationship that allows such people access to unpublished price sensitive information (UPSI). Sebi said that a connected person is one who has a connection with the company that is expected to put him in possession of UPSI. The definition will also bring into its ambit persons who may not seemingly occupy any position in a company but are in regular touch with the company and its officers and are involved in the know of operations. Besides, immediate relatives of connected persons would also come under the same category unless they prove that they were not privy to unpublished price sensitive information.The regulator has decided to remove the requirement for repeated disclosures and ease compliance burden. To protect the interest of investors, companies would be now mandatorily be required to disclose UPSI at least two days prior to trading in case of permitted communication of such information. Besides, communication of such information is prohibited except in instances of legitimate purposes or discharge of legal obligations.