Blog Posts
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Success of Venture Capital Investments in India
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] One of our readers, Aravind Balajee, brings to our attention this story from VC Circle. It relates to a tremendously successful exit by a venture capital investor, UTI Ventures, from an Indian portfolio company, Excelsoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd. The details are here: “There is a thing or two to learn from…
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Role of Law and Politics in India’s Economic Growth
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] There is a recent paper titled “Law, Finance, and Politics: The Case of India” by John Armour and Priya Lele that has been posted on SSRN. The authors join the debate as to whether a country’s legal origins (e.g. common law or civil law) necessarily have an impact on the extent…
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New Merger Norms for Telcos
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] The Indian telecommunications industry has witnessed significant consolidation over the last few years, with several large scale investments and mergers having occurred in this space. The Department of Telecommunications (DOT) has now issued Guidelines for intra-circle merger of licencees, which seek to strengthen DOT’s control and oversight of such mergers. While…
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Disclosure Norms for Law Firms
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] So far, public listings of securities by law firms has not caught on despite the first law firm (Australia’s Slater & Gordon) listing about a year ago. The legal practice regulations in most jurisdictions do not permit law firms to either take a corporate form or to issue its securities to…
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SEBI Pricing Norms & Private Equity
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] When the market prices of companies in India are lower than what they were a few months ago, they would obviously be attractive to private equity funds and similar investors. However, the SEBI minimum pricing norms as set out in Chapter XIII of the SEBI (Disclosure & Investor Protection) Guidelines, 2000…
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Dispute Resolution under the New Company Law
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] The establishment of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has been mired in controversy right from the start. Although the Companies Act was amended as early as 2002 to pave the way for the NCLT, the body is yet to be established (and the relevant provisions of the Amendment Act of…
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Consolidation in the Indian Financial Sector
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] The financial services sector in India (both in the banking and non-banking finance industry) has witnessed consolidation over the last few years through various mergers & acquisitions. This trend will perhaps continue in the future as well. A recent speech by V. Leeladhar, Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India…
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Short Selling is Here
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] We had carried an earlier post commenting on the proposed introduction of short selling on the Indian stock exchanges and discussing the broad implications of that move. Short selling is now being implemented with effect from Monday, April 21, 2008, and the Bombay Stock Exchange as well as the National Stock…
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Regulating Companies: Whose Role is it Anyway?
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] In the case of listed companies, when it comes to corporate governance, there is a classic dichotomy in regulation. On the one hand, it is the Ministry of Company Affairs that is largely responsible for the implementation of the Companies Act, 1956, while it is SEBI that is responsible for implementation…
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Directors’ Duties During Times of Crises
[Posted by Umakanth Varottil] The unexpected market conditions in recent times have rocked corporate boards world over. Healthy companies have begun to declare less satisfactory results, while the unlucky one’s face extinction. Companies are increasingly being exposed to liabilities towards shareholders, creditors and other counterparties, and consequently, directors of such companies are having to face…