Tag: Corporate Social Responsibility
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Tax Deductibility in the Light of the New CSR Regime
[Shivani Pattnaik and Sourav Jena are undergraduate students at the National Law University, Odisha] Recently, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (“MCA”) along with the Government of India has amended section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013 (“the Act”), thereby bringing upon significant changes to corporate social responsibility (“CSR”) regulations in India. After years of mandated…
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A Post-Pandemic Analysis of CSR in India
[Posted by Akshaya Kamalnath] India’s provision relating to corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the Companies Act, 2013 has attempted to define and measure the concept, and is in this respect something of a milestone. However, by thus providing a definition and measurability to CSR, the concept has lost some of its innate flexibility. In my…
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UKSC on Parent’s Liability for Environmental Violations of Foreign Subsidiaries
[Raghav Harini N is a final year student at ILS Law College, Pune] In a recent landmark decision in Okpabi v Royal Dutch Shell Plc, the Supreme Court of United Kingdom (UK) has permitted a jurisdiction appeal against a UK-domiciled parent company for the environmental violations of its Nigerian subsidiary. This judgment makes a significant contribution…
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Analysing MCA’s Proposed Framework on Business Responsibility Reporting
[Yash More and Hitoishi Sarkar are III year students at Gujarat National Law University] On August 18, 2020, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (“SEBI”) released the Consultation Paper on the format for Business Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting in India. Interestingly, on August 11, 2020, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (“MCA”) had also released…
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Corporate Activism: Once Again Questioning the Purpose of a Company
[Rajat Maloo is a III year B.A., LL.B. (Hons.) student at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore] Recently, large corporations such as Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, and Facebook amongst several others have been expected to fulfil a different kind of social responsibility. Unilever and Johnson & Johnson were some of the few companies who…
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SEBI Working Group Report on Social Stock Exchange
[Rongeet Poddar is a 5th year student at the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences] The Working Group Report on Social Stock Exchange constituted by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has evaluated the prospect of introducing a ‘Social Stock Exchange’ (SSE). As acknowledged in the Report published on 1 June 2020,…
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Is the Indian CSR Legal Framework COVID Ready?
[Ayush Vijayvargiya is a corporate lawyer in Mumbai and a graduate of NALSAR University of Law] Since the onset of COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdown in India, there has been constant public demand for increased spending by the Government to address shortage of medical supplies in hospitals, food and monetary allowance to urban and rural…
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New CSR Amendment Brings New Challenges for Implementing Agencies
[Tanya Nair is a 4th year B.A.LLB.(Hons.) student at NLIU, Bhopal] On 13 March 2020 the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) invited comments from the public concerning the draft Companies (Corporate Social Responsibility Policy) Amendment Rules, 2020. The draft amendment, once notified, will make significant changes to the corporate social responsibility policies of various companies.…
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National Action Plan on Business and Human rights: A Critique
[Vedangini Bisht is a third year student at National Law University Delhi] In November 2018, at the Business and Human Rights Forum in Geneva, India formally announced that it would come up with a National Action Plan (NAP) on Business and Human Rights. This makes India one of 45 countries to have a NAP on…
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Continued Uncertainties in the CSR Regime
[Roshni Menon is a an Associate at Samvad Partners, Bangalore] On July 31, 2019, the Parliament passed several amendments to the Companies Act, 2013 .The amendments were brought in to reduce cumbersome compliance, rationalise penalties, and crack the whip on shell companies. They also introduced several revisions to the existing outline of corporate social responsibility…