Tag: Company Law

  • Stock Options for Nominee Directors

    Nominee directors on Indian corporate boards are a unique category of directors. They are usually are nominated by a bank, financial institution or other large investor to be a director on companies in which such nominating entities have invested. Sometimes, nominee directors also find themselves in an unenviable position – in case of a conflict

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  • Supreme Court on Winding-up Petition by a Contributory

    Usually, in a merger, the resulting company becomes entitled to all the rights (and subject to all the liabilities) of the merging company. This includes the exercise of rights in respect of shares in other companies (which we shall call target companies) held by the merging company, as the resulting company would become the owner

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  • Liquidation Preference: How Effective is it?

    In a column in the Economic Times, Amrita Singh and Siddharth Shah discuss the relevance of the concept of liquidation preference in Indian investment transactions: “The progressive liberalisation of the foreign investment regime has provided a major boost to private equity and venture capital investments in Indian companies. With the advent of more sophisticated players

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  • Share Buyback: The Effect of Shareholders’ Resolution

    In a recent case decided last week, the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) had the occasion to decide on the effect of a shareholders’ resolution in the context of a buyback of shares. The SAT decision is available here. The facts of the case are fairly straightforward. The company involved, D-Link India Ltd, proposed to the

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  • Management Buyouts (MBOs): Possibilities and Challenges

    Earlier this week, The Hindu Business Line carried a detailed column on various business and financial aspects of management buyouts (MBOs), particularly as such deals are being witnessed (albeit infrequently) in India. Simply stated, management buyouts involve the acquisition of a division of a company or the shares in a company, in each case by

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  • Differential Voting Rights: Some Further References

    In earlier posts (here and here), this Blog had covered the issue of differential voting rights by Indian companies. A recent column by Srikanth Srinivas in the Business World examines the business rationale for the issuance of shares with differential voting rights and also the pros and cons of such instruments. The key objectives that

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  • The Proper Purpose of a Corporation

    One of the themes that we often explore on this Blog relates to the determination of the proper purpose of a corporation – i.e. whether a corporation exists solely to carry on business for the benefit of its owners (i.e. shareholders), or whether it has a larger responsibility towards other stakeholders and generally the society.

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  • Differential Voting Rights: A Markets Perspective

    Economic Times carries the views and recommendations of various market participants about the feasibility and economics of issue of differential voting rights by Indian companies. One interviewee notes: “Differential voting rights can work every where in the world, and so also in India. These are ideally good instruments for passive investors, typically small investors, who

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  • Dispute Resolution under the New Company Law

    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 2002 are yet to

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  • Regulating Companies: Whose Role is it Anyway?

    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 of the corporate governance

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