[The following guest post is contributed by Aditi Jhunjhunwala, who is a partner at Vinod Kothari & Co, and can be reached at [email protected]]. Amongst the various amendments proposed in the Finance Bill, 2016, one such relates to changes to the provisions of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 (the Act/FCRA), which has come as a relief to foreign owned and controlled...
Report of the High Level Committee on CSR
[The following guest post is contributed by Suprotik Das, a 4th year law student at the Jindal Global Law School, Sonepat, Haryana.] This post is with regard to the Report of the High Level Committee to suggest measures for improved monitoring of the implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility policies. The Committee has suggested a number of measures and steps to bring out...
FCRA: CSR by foreign companies
[The following guest post is contributed by Swati Rampuria at Vinod Kothari & Co. She can be contacted at [email protected]] Introduction The Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010 (‘FCRA’), regulates the receipt and utilization of foreign contribution by certain persons and also disallows acceptance and utilization of foreign contribution for certain activities. Being a special...
Is provisioning a necessary precursor to CSR spending?
[The following post is contributed by Prachi Narayan and Swati Rampuria at Vinod Kothari & Co. They can be contacted at [email protected] and [email protected] respectively] Introduction Corporate social responsibility (‘CSR’) was made mandatory by Companies Act, 2013 (‘Act’). Al though it has been a year since this concept has entered the Indian corporate regime, still there are...
Committee to Suggest Monitoring Measures for CSR
Readers will recall the debates in the lead up to the Companies Act, 2013 as to whether the provisions relating to corporate social responsibility (CSR) ought to be mandatory or voluntary. Finally, a compromise position was arrived at that largely amounts to a “comply-or-explain” approach. Since the CSR provision (section 135) was brought into effect from April 1, 2014, its impact (particularly...
CSR in Government Companies
The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has acquired tremendous prominence in India since the enactment of the Companies Act, 2013 and the Companies (Corporate Social Responsibility Policy) Rules, 2014 (the CSR Rules). They are applicable to large companies, whether or not they are listed on the stock exchange. Now, the Ministry of Heavy Industries & Public Enterprises of the...
Paper on CSR in China and India
Professors Afra Afsharipour and Shruti Rana have a new paper titled The Emergence of New Corporate Social Responsibility Regimes in China and India, which is now available on SSRN. The abstract is as follows: In an era of financial crises, widening income disparities, and environmental and other calamities linked to corporations, calls for greater corporate social responsibility (“CSR”) are...
Briefing on Corporate Social Responsibility
The NSE Centre for Excellence in Corporate Governance (CECG) has issued its most recent quarterly briefing titled Corporate Social Responsibility Under Companies Act, 2013 authored by Prof. Subrata Sarkar. The executive summary is as follows: The newly enacted Companies Act, 2013 and the Rules notified thereunder makes it statutory for all companies above a certain size to spend 2 percent of...
MCA Clarification on CSR
The provisions of the Companies Act, 2013 and the relevant Rules thereunder relating to corporate social responsibility (CSR) have come into effect from April 1, 2014. Since this concept is novel in India from a regulatory standpoint, several difficulties are bound to rise in its implementation. Matters are compounded further because the nature of the Act and Rules are extremely prescriptive in...
Directors’ Actions: For Whose Benefit?
It is clear that directors ought to act in good faith for the benefit of the company. Since the company is a separate legal personality, there is often the question as to who represents the interests of the company. Generally, the interests of the company are said to equate with the interests of the shareholders, while in the case of an insolvent company (or one that is in the zone of insolvency)...
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