Tag: Financial Markets

  • Regulating Hedge Funds

    I have uploaded an abstract of a working paper titled Analysing India’s Approach to Hedge Fund Regulation on SSRN, which is reproduced below: “Hedge funds tend to employ aggressive investment strategies, and they highly leverage their funds. While hedge funds infuse liquidity into the financial markets and enhance market efficiency, they also engage in complex

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  • Disclosures in Complex Transactions

    With increasing complexity in transactions entered into by companies, especially in the financial sector, there is the lingering question of how these transactions are to be meaningfully disclosed to shareholders of the companies so as to enable them to take an investment decision (such as to buy, sell, hold, etc.). The trouble here is that

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  • Role of Law and Politics in India’s Economic Growth

    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 of its financial development,

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  • More on the Indian Derivatives Saga

    While the legalities of several derivative transactions entered into between banks and corporates are pending consideration of courts, it appears that these matters have ended up in court in the first place because of unexpected market movements over the last few months which defied all prior indications and past market history. Livemint has a detailed

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  • Accounting for Derivatives Exposure

    A recent announcement by the Institute of Chartered Accounts of India (ICAI) has added to the imbroglio over derivatives. Accounting Standard 30 (AS30) that deals with accounting for derivatives was to become mandatory with effect from April 1, 2011. However, the ICAI in an emergent decision has called for an early adoption of AS30 for

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  • Improving Stock Sales Practices of Intermediaries

    Stock intermediaries around the world, such as brokers and sub-brokers, who recommend and sell securities to clients, are regulated by the securities regulatory agencies of the countries where they operate as well as the stock exchanges of which they are members. However, the stock intermediation industry has been facing several problems over the years on

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  • Inadequacies of the FII Regime

    One of our guest contributors, Somasekhar Sundaresan, has a well-argued column in the Business Standard in which he calls for an overhaul of the regulations that govern foreign institutional investors (FIIs) in India. Here it is: The regulatory regime for foreign institutional investors (FIIs) is the Indian capital market’s window to the outside world which

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  • Trading in Futures – Financial Instruments of Mass Destruction?

    The exposure of Indian corporates and banks to derivatives has been receiving a lot of attention lately. For example, see LiveMint (here and here), Financial Express and Economic Times. But, what are some of the key legal considerations that arise in the case of derivative transactions? To examine those, we have a guest contribution. Image:

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