Earlier this month, SEBI issued amendments to the Equity Listing Agreement. The amendments have been discussed in the SEBI Updates Blog. There are a number of procedural changes, including requirements regarding reporting of shareholding patterns of listed companies and announcements regarding significant corporate events. More importantly, clause 40A of the listing agreement has been amended to...
Theoretical Foundations of Corporate Law: Ronald Coase
For those interested in theoretical aspects of the firm and their influence in corporate law, the Schumpeter column in the Economist discusses the academic life of Ronald Coase, who turns 100 this month. Here are some excerpts: The man who restored the pin factory to its rightful place at the heart of economic theory celebrates his 100th birthday on December 29th. The economics profession was...
Consilience 2011: Conference on Privacy, Technology and the Law
The Law and Technology Committee (elTek) of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore is hosting ‘Consilience’, a conference where contemporary issues of critical relevance in the field of law and technology are addressed. Past editions of the conference have engaged with a vast spectrum of cutting edge issues such as “Legal Aspects of Business Process Outsourcing”, “Biotechnology...
Allahabad High Court Stay in the SEBI-Sahara Case
(This post has been contributed by Amit Agrawal, a legal practitioner practicing before Rajasthan High Court, Jaipur and an alumnus of National Law School of India University, Bangalore) In the SEBI-Sahara controversy, SEBI has previously issued an ad-interim order on November 24, 2010 (discussed previously on this Blog) against Sahara entities and their promoters and directors. The securities...
Regulation of Stock Exchanges: Ownership and Governance
We have previously discussed the Bimal Jalan Committee report on “Review of Ownership and Governance of Market Infrastructure Institutions”. The report has been subject to intense debate, and the overwhelming view emerging is that the recommendations will destroy competition in the sphere. In this post, I attempt to list some of the relevant readings on this issue: – Views in the Business...
“Professional” Independent Directors
In a recent Economic Times column, Prof. T.T. Ram Mohan discusses the concept of a professional board propagated by Lee Pozen in the Harvard Business Review (Dec. 2010, p. 50). The idea goes as follows: The author, Robert Pozen, lists reasons why boards are ineffective. They are too large (the average size of the top 500 companies in the US was 11 in 2009). Members lack domain expertise (only one...
Further Observations on SEBI’s Order in the Sahara Case
(The following post has been contributed by Vijay Kumar, a lawyer and a company secretary by qualification, who is practising as an Advocate in the Chennai High Court with the law firm of Iyer and Thomas) Further to the earlier post on this Blog, a few aspects that emerge from the order are as follows: (a) SEBI has come to the conclusion that OFCDs issued by SIRECL and SHICL are securities issued...
A Season For Insider Trading Probes
… in the U.S. (involving the hedge fund industry),
… as well as in India (involving certain large financial institutions and companies) arising out of the so-called loan scam.
The larger question is whether (and how) the investigations would be pursued to their logical conclusion resulting in effective enforcement of the regulations, which is never an easy task in the case of insider trading.
Offering of Debentures: SEBI’s Order in the Sahara Case
Earlier this week, SEBI issued an order restraining two entities of the Sahara group as well as certain promoters and directors from accessing the capital markets. While Sahara Prime City Limited had filed its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with SEBI in connection with its proposed IPO, SEBI received complaints that its group companies Sahara India Real Estate Corporation Limited (SIRECL)...
Proxies for Shareholders; Alternates for Directors
A column in today’s Business Line by S. Murlidharan analyzes the appointment of proxies by shareholders to attend general meetings as compared to the appointment of alternate directors on the board. Although the author alludes to the “shareholder’s proxy” and “director’s proxy” (the latter being the alternate director), he highlights the all-important difference between the two: while the proxy...
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