Category: Uncategorized
-
Regulatory Steps Towards Public Offerings and Transparency
The Economic Times reports that SEBI has issued a circular which requires companies with less than 25% public float to raise funds through public offering of securities rather than through private placement to institutions, or QIPs. This is with a view to increasing the public holding in listed companies and to contain stock price manipulation.…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
Progress Property Affirmed: Unlawful Distribution of Capital
“The rule is essentially a judge-made rule, almost as old as company law itself, derived from the fundamental principles embodied in the statutes by which Parliament has permitted companies to be incorporated with limited liability.” So said Lord Walker last week in delivering the judgment of the United Kingdom Supreme Court in Progress Property v…
-
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…
-
“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…
-
Competition Commission decision on Bank Prepayment charges: The Meaning of ‘Agreement’
The Competition Commission of India has issued its order in Case No. 5/2009 (decision dated 2nd December 2010), Neeraj Malhotra v. Deutsche Post Bank Home Finance Ltd. and others. A copy of the majority (4-2) decision is available here. Two dissenting orders are available here and here. The decision and the dissents demonstrate divergent approaches…
-
The Supreme Court in BSNL v Reliance: Penalty and Liquidated Damages
The complexity of the distinction between penalties and liquidated damages in English law is amply borne out by the fact that even McGregor’s remarkably concise and insightful account is forced to begin with a seventeenth century statute (18th edition, ¶¶13.001 onwards). For an elaborate account of the law, interested readers may refer to Chitty on…
