Blog Posts
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Sentences in China’s Sanlu Milk Case
Speaking of corporate crimes, this news report in Caijing states that death sentences have been awarded by an Intermediate Court to three persons and life imprisonment for one in the contaminated milk case. This comes within mere 4 months of the scandal that unfolded in September last year. While criminal punishment will certainly serve as…
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Paper on Corporate Governance
I have posted on SSRN a paper titled “A Cautionary Tale of the Transplant Effect on Indian Corporate Governance”, the abstract of which is as follows: “During the last decade, there has been a sustained effort on the part of the Indian regulators to strengthen corporate governance norms. This been strongly influenced by developments that…
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Supreme Court rejects Vodafone’s appeal
According to a report in the Economic Times, the Supreme Court has refused to admit Vodafone’s SLP against the order of the Bombay High Court in the Vodafone tax matter. The Court has asked Vodafone to respond to the show cause notice issued by the Revenue. It now appears that the battle will reach the…
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Proposal for “Golden Share”
Business Standard reports that the Government is considering investing in the “golden share” in infrastructure projects. The report states: “The “golden share”, which will be owned by the government, will ensure that it has a say in all major decisions taken by the private concessionaire. It will also obviate the need for the government to…
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SEBI decides to make disclosure of pledged shares by Promoters mandatory
SEBI has finally decided to make disclosure of shares held by Promoters in listed entities owned by them mandatory (see the press release). The relevant paragraph reads as under:- “To enhance the disclosure requirements, SEBI Board, in its meeting held today, decided to make it mandatory on the part of promoters (including promoter group) to…
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FDI and Globalisation: Where Does India’s Policy Stand?
(This is a cross-post from the Law and Other Things Blog) The theme for the January 2009 issue of Halsbury’s Law Monthly is Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Globalisation. The issue carries two articles that generally deal with FDI and three that specifically discuss issues on Indian policy. The first, an article titled “Globalisation and…
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SAT Sets Aside Orders Against NSDL and CDSL
In 2007, the Adjudicating Officer of SEBI had passed orders against National Securities Depository Ltd. (NSDL) and Central Depository Services India Ltd. (CDSL) imposing a penalty of Rs. 5 crores (Rs. 50 million) and Rs. 3 crores (Rs. 30 million) respectively. The adjudication arose out of the scam in connection with various initial public offerings…
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Satyam Update 3 – is pledge of shares insider trading?
The Economic Times reports today (17th January 2009) that SEBI is examining whether, in law, pledge of shares amounts to Insider Trading. The SEBI Committee, as the report importantly adds, will also consider whether the law should be amended whereby pledge of Promoters’ shares would now be required to be disclosed. A crisis and major…
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Liberalisation of External Commercial Borrowings
While most attention was shifted over the last few days towards the developments in Satyam, there have been some policy announcements further liberalising the external commercial borrowings (ECBs) that merit consideration. On January 2, 2009, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced policy changes to the ECB policy as follows: – all-in cost ceilings for…
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Satyam Update 2 – What are the wrongs?
This series was proposed by the first post to take the Satyam Episode as a case study to understand what laws apply and whether and how are they appropriate to punish wrong doings. For this purpose, let us consider what are the alleged wrongs? To start with, let us shortlist some of these wrongs and…
