Blog Posts
-
SEC Proposals to Curb Short Selling
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] Who Shall Govern? CEO/Board Power, Demographic Similarity, and New Director Selection The U.S. SEC earlier this week announced a set of proposals to curb short selling. One the one hand, it is argued by proponents of short selling (primarily institutional investors such as hedge funds) that such activity helps contribute to…
-
Staid Capital Markets
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] Primary capital market activity in the form of public offerings and rights offerings is virtually down to a trickle. While that is not at all surprising considering the somber market conditions, some numbers have been recently reported in the Business Standard as follows: Fund mobilisation through initial public offerings (IPOs) touched…
-
AAR doubts Ishikawajima – Territorial Nexus and Royalties
[Posted by V. Niranjan] An earlier post discussed the taxability of royalties paid to non-residents for technical services. There has been substantial conflict in decisions on this point. Under Section 9(1)(vi) of the Income Tax Act, 1961, royalties payable by non-residents in respect of a right, property or service utilized for the purpose of making…
-
DO CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES FALL UNDER THE AMBIT OF THE SECURITIZATION ACT?
[Posted by Venugopal Mahapatra] In an earlier post, it was reported that the Supreme Court had excluded cooperative societies from the purview of the RDB Act (Debt Recovery Tribunals). Recently, similar questions have been raised about the scope of the Securitization Act, 2002, and whether it covers co-operative societies. Unlike the RDB Act, which did…
-
Demystifying concepts and terms used in agreements
[Posted by Satyajit Gupta] My colleague, Daksh Trivedi has recently written an interesting article in The Mint, where he has discussed the various legal concepts/ terms used in shareholders and share purchase agreements. He begins with: Typical documents used for capturing terms of equity investments, that is, share-purchase agreements or shareholders’ agreements, are now complex…
-
Globalisation and the Indian Legal Sector
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] In what may perhaps be the first academic study in the field, Professor Jayanth Krishnan examines the issues that revolve around the opening up of the Indian legal sector to foreign law firms. In his paper Globetrotting Law Firms, which is the product of empirical study through fieldwork and interviews, Professor…
-
Independent Directors and Family-Owned Companies
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] I came across an interesting article Guests at the Table?: Independent Directors in Family-Influenced Public Companies by Professor Deborah DeMott. Although the article focuses primarily on U.S. law (where family-owned companies are more the exception than the rule), it does have a significant bearing on the Indian situation as well. In…
-
RTI and the Corporate Sector
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] The Right to Information Act, 2005 has been successful in inducing transparency in the decision-making process of the government. However, it has been reported, quoting the Chief Information Commissioner, that the there is a need for the concept of right to information (RTI) under the Act to be “directly applicable to…
-
A Recent Corporate Governance Survey
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] Business Standard reports a recent study by Grant Thornton-FICCI of corporate governance practices in Indian companies. The “India 101-500 CGR 2009 was designed to analyze corporate governance practices at ‘mid-market’ listed companies in India. The review methodology was based on a survey to gauge the nature and extent of corporate governance…