[The following guest post is contributed by Bhavika Gohil, who is working with a multinational consulting firm in Mumbai] The Madras High Court by way of its order dated 6 June 2016 (accessible through Judis) permitted petitions filed by Equitas Micro Finance Limited (“Transferor Co. 1”), Equitas Housing Finance Ltd. (“Transferor Co. 2”) and Equitas Finance Ltd. (“Transferee Company”) (“the...
National Company Law Tribunal Constituted: A Phased Induction
Although the Companies Act, 2013 was enacted nearly three years ago, significant parts of the legislation were not brought into force. These related to the role of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). Although the NCLT was conferred legislative status as early as 2002 (under the Companies Act, 1956), it did not see the light of day as it was mired in litigation. After two judgments of the...
Interim Dividends – Is the Confusion Clearing?
[The following guest post is contributed by Siddharth Raja and Neeraj Vyas, who are Founding Partner and Associate respectively of Samvad Partners. Views are personal, and comments are welcome] The concept of ‘interim dividend’ was only introduced into the Indian companies statute in 2000 — that was legislative recognition of a move that had started to develop and gain...
Gender Diversity and Government Companies
It has been more than a year since a provision in the Companies Act, 2013 came into effect that requires all listed companies to have at least one woman director. As we had previously discussed, companies scrambled to comply with the requirement as of April 1, 2015, the effective date. However, a recent news report in the Business Standard indicates that 57 companies listed on the NSE are yet to...
Stamp Duty on Inter-State Amalgamations
[This post is slightly longer than our usual posts. I would like to thank a reader for drawing attention to a judgment that is the subject matter of this post] Stamp duty on schemes of amalgamation undertaken through sections 391 to 394 of the Companies Act, 1956 have tended to experience a great deal of controversy, as we have previous discussed on this Blog (here, here and here). A recent...
Private Companies Subsidiaries of Overseas Holding Companies — Changes in Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2016
[The following guest post is contributed by Siddharth Raja, Founding Partner of Samvad Partners. Views are personal, and comments are welcome] In an earlier blog post, I had examined in detail the issue whether Indian “private” companies that are subsidiaries of foreign or overseas bodies corporate retain their incorporation status for all purposes of the 2013 Companies Act; or...
Equity-Based Crowdfunding as an Early-Stage Financing Alternative: Critique of the Regulatory Proposals in India
[The following guest post is contributed by Shwetha Chandrashekar, who is a Senior Associate in Bangalore, India at GameChanger Law Advisors. She can be contacted on [email protected].] With over 4200 start-ups, India is the fastest growing start-up ecosystem worldwide. It has the third-largest number of start-ups in the technology sector following the US and the UK.[1] However, India is...
Companies (Amendment) Bill 2016: An Analysis
[The following post is contributed by Vinod Kothari of Vinod Kothari & Co.] The Government placed a Bill to amend the Companies Act, 2013 (the “2013 Act”), passed less than 3 years ago, proposing nearly 100 amendments, purported to be for the ease of doing business. Most of the amendments proposed in the Bill are to implement the recommendations of the Company Law Committee, which was...
Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2016 Introduced in Parliament
Last month, the Companies Law Committee (CLC) had submitted its report recommending certain reforms to the Companies Act, 2013. Suggestions were invited from the public through a brief consultation process. Based on these recommendations, the Government has now introduced the Companies (Amendment) Bill, 2016 in the Lok Sabha. The Statement of Objects and Reasons set out the rationale for the...
Delhi High Court on Directors’ Duties and Derivative Actions
It is not very often that we witness cases in India relating to intrinsic company law issues such as breaches of directors’ duties and shareholder remedies through derivative actions. However, questions of directors’ duties have been brought to the fore following the Companies Act, 2013 as they have been codified in the legislation. Derivative action, however, still remains within the realm of...
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