[Priya Maharishi and Vansh Singla are 4th B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) students at Jindal Global Law School, Sonepat] With the growth of start-ups and early-stage companies, there is a continuous need for long-term capital investments and management expertise. Pooled investment funds can fulfil this need as they have forbearance unlike other sources of capital like public funding. These pooled investment...
India’s Attempt to Regulate SPACs: Sponsors in the Spotlight
[Anushri Uttarwar is a 4th year law student at O.P. Jindal Global University] On March 11, 2021, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (“SEBI”) formed a group of experts to study the viability of introducing structures like special purpose acquisition companies (“SPACs”) in India. Contrary to SEBI’s guarded position, the International Financial Services Centre Authority (“IFSCA”) has already...
Towards a Proportionate Regulatory Framework for Virtual Currencies
[Anshul Semwal is a 5th year B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) student at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore] On April 6, 2018, the Reserve Bank of India (‘RBI’), a staunch critic of virtual currencies (‘VCs’), issued a circular banning the trade of VCs. The ban was short-lived as, two years later, the Supreme Court quashed the circular on the ground of proportionality in Internet and Mobile...
Why is Bilateral Netting Relevant?
[Lakshmi Babu is a corporate lawyer with an interest in financial regulation] The Central Government has recently notified the Bilateral Netting of Qualified Financial Contracts Act, 2020 (“Netting Act”), which intends to implement the process of bilateral netting among eligible financial parties. The Netting Act is effective from October 1, 2020. Netting, in essence, means the off-setting of all...
Banning Short-Selling During Financial Crises – An Optimal Approach?
[Talin Bhardwaj is a third-year student of B.A. LL.B (Hons.) at the Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Patiala] The unprecedented circumstances emanating from the Covid-19 pandemic have created major instability in the financial markets of various countries that has been detrimental to the confidence of investors. This economic crisis has forced financial regulators around the world to take...
RBI Moratorium and NPAs: The Uncertainty Still Persists?
[Nikhil Purohit is a IV year student at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore] The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and its responses such as the imposition of lockdowns have created significant financial disruption in economies globally. A recent interesting example could be seen in the crude oil prices touching negative territory for the first time. In order to ease the...
Blueprint of a Fintech Regulatory Sandbox Law for India
[Shehnaz Ahmed is a Senior Resident Fellow and Krittika Chavaly a Project Fellow for Fintech, both at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, a New Delhi based independent think-tank. [This post was originally published on the Oxford Business Law Blog, and can be accessed here] As technological innovation disrupts the financial sector, regulators across the world continue to explore and experiment with...
Crypto-Trading’s Tryst with Destiny
[Megha Mittal is an Associate with Vinod Kothari & Co.] Amidst apprehensions of crypto-trading being a highly volatile and risk-concentric venture, the Supreme Court, in its order dated 4 March 2020 observed that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), a staunch critic of cryptocurrencies, failed to present any empirical evidence substantiating cryptocurrency’s negative impact on the banking and...
Can IBC be Invoked against a Financial Service Provider?
[Anirudh Agrawal is a fourth year student of Nalsar University of Law, Hyderabad] Recently, a two-member bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in Apeejay Trust v. Aviva Life Insurance Co. India Ltd instituted insolvency proceedings against one of the leading insurance companies of the country – Aviva Life Insurance. Given the exclusion of ‘financial service providers’ from the...
Decoding India’s Regulatory Sandbox Program for Innovations in Financial Technology
[Anirban Roy Choudhury is a banking and finance lawyer, currently pursuing Master of Laws in Finance at the Institute for Law and Finance, Goethe University Frankfurt] Regulatory sandboxes are designed to provide a controlled environment for testing innovative financial or other products and services on a real-time basis, subject to certain regulatory safeguards and supervision. Its primary...
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