MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Stock Exchange on Friday announced it affirmed with finality the delisting of troubled agricultural company Calata Corp., which will take effect on Monday, December 11.

In a memorandum, the PSE said it denied Calata’s motion for reconsideration filed on November 8, a day after the Exchange issued a separate memo approving the company’s removal from the local bourse.

“After due consideration and evaluation of the arguments presented in the MR, the Exchange resolved to deny the Company’s MR for lack of merit,” the PSE said.

“Accordingly, the Exchange affirmed, with finality, the delisting of the Company’s shares from the Official Registry of the Exchange and the imposition of the concomitant penalties under the Exchange’s Delisting Rules,” it added.

Delisting has stiff consequences. For one, the company cannot relist within five years and its officers and board members cannot be part of any other listed company within the same period.

The PSE counted 55 violations of disclosure rules from October 6, 2016 to June 20, 2017 when businessman Joseph Calata started selling his shares in the company.

Calata was found to have violated the ‘blackout rule’ which prohibits directors and principal officers who have obtained material non-public information to trade their company’s shares within a prescribed period.

The PSE’s blackout rule is meant to provide a fair market environment to the investing public by disallowing the possible trading of company insiders using non-public information that they may have access to by virtue of their position in the company.

Last month, the PSE announced the delisting of Calata, forcing the firm to do a tender offer as "an exit mechanism" for shareholders even as its owner said making a tender offer would send Calata to bankruptcy.

This is not the first time Calata was mired in a stock market controversy. In 2012, the year it went public, the company’s name was also dragged in stock market manipulation.