The Budget makes some proposals to boost the financial markets in India, both in the debt and equity segments, but arguably the reforms are only incremental and many not necessary result in drastic expansion of the markets. Corporate Bonds The first proposal is to give a fillip to the bond markets. As a co-author and I have observed in an earlier paper, the equity markets in India have developed...
Budget 2015: Ease of Doing Business
The Government’s focus on enhancing the ease of doing business in India is abundantly evident from the Budget. This involves not only issues of licensing and approvals, but also matters for legal reform. In this post, I argue that while the proposals in the Budget will certainly help grow industry and foreign investment, many of these measures appear to correlate precisely with the need to...
Constitutionality of the Amended Definition of “Non-Performing Asset” Upheld
[The following post is contributed by Prachi Narayan of Vinod Kothari & Company. She can be contacted at [email protected].] The Supreme Court in its judgment dated January 28, 2015 in Keshavlal Khemchand & Sons Pvt Ltd & Ors v. Union of India disposed off seventy petitions challenging the validity of the amended definition of Non Performing Asset (“NPA”) provided under section...
Budget 2015: Some Preliminary Thoughts
The Finance Minister today announced India’s Budget 2015-2016. The Budget documents, including his speech are available here. It is significant that this Budget comes during a period of upturn in the economy after a few preceding years of perceived gloom and doom, especially from the perspective of foreign investors. Other features attributable to the current macroeconomic environment include...
RBI’s New Diktat: Lending to a Subsidiary
[The following post is contributed by Nivedita Shankar, who is a Senior Associate at Vinod Kothari & Company. She can be contacted at [email protected]] The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on January 7, 2015[1] has modified the Master Circular on Wilful Defaulters (Master Circular) with a view to usher in greater transparency and accountability in the process for identification of wilful...
Committee to Suggest Monitoring Measures for CSR
Readers will recall the debates in the lead up to the Companies Act, 2013 as to whether the provisions relating to corporate social responsibility (CSR) ought to be mandatory or voluntary. Finally, a compromise position was arrived at that largely amounts to a “comply-or-explain” approach. Since the CSR provision (section 135) was brought into effect from April 1, 2014, its impact (particularly...
Report on Bankruptcy Law Reforms
The state of bankruptcy law in India continues to leave much to be desired, and adds to the difficulties in doing business in the country. Several previous efforts have been undertaken towards reforms, but they have either been introduced on a piecemeal basis or have not entirely been successful. With this in mind, the Government had last year appointed the Bankruptcy Law Reform Committee (BLRC)...
Truth in lending: Regulatory Measures in India
[The following guest post is contributed by Neha Somani of Vinod Kothari Consultants Pvt. Ltd. The author can be contacted at [email protected]] Truth-in-lending laws, found in many countries world-over, ensure that lenders make a truthful disclosure of their rates of interest, and do not seek to attract borrowers with misleading rates of interest. Truthful disclosure of rates of...
Pricing of Options To Foreign Investors
The last few weeks have witnessed some activity from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which is indicative of a more liberalized approach towards the pricing at which foreign investors are able to sell their shares upon exercise of options (such as put options) made available to them under contractual documentation. Most of the indications came from the RBI in relation to a specific case involving...
The State of Shareholder Activism
The latest issue of the Economist carries two pieces (here and here) arguing about the importance of shareholder activism as a means to enhance the management and governance of companies. The magazine appears to extol the virtues of activism in the current economic environment, although some might dispute whether activist investors have had as much of a positive role to play in corporate...
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