Tag: Independent Directors

  • Recent Developments Pertaining to Independent Directors

    Professor Bala N. Balasubramanian has authored the latest edition of the NSE Quarterly Briefing titled “Caution: Independent Directors – Hairpin Turns Ahead!”. The abstract/introduction is as follows: The institution of Independent Directors (D), heralded as a virtual panacea for all governance ills, nearly three decades ago in the UK’s Cadbury prescriptions, is now almost universally

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  • Actions against Independent Directors for Dishonour of Cheques

    The question of liability of independent directors is a sensitive one given such directors carry substantial risk without having an influence in the day-to-day management of the company. Hence, the Companies Act, 2013 introduced a specific carve out in section 149(12) by which an independent director cannot be made liable for acts pertaining to the

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  • Age-limit Criteria for Non-Executive Directors under Amended SEBI Listing Regulations: Prospective or Retrospective?

    [Gaurav Pingle is a practising Company Secretary in Pune and can be reached at gp@csgauravpingle.com] Introduction On June 2 2017, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (‘SEBI’) constituted a committee under the chairmanship of Mr. Uday Kotak for improving the standards of corporate governance of listed companies in India. On October 5, 2017, Kotak

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  • The Tata Corporate Governance Episode: The ‘India-Specific’ Issues and Concerns

    [Guest post by Priya Garg, a 4th year law-student at West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences (WBNUJS)] Introduction The recent turf battle within the Tata Group is likely to become a subject matter of study for various disciplines, including the subject of corporate law and governance.[1] The Tata-Mistry dispute giving rise to corporate governance

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  • Activism through Directors Elected by “Small Shareholders”

    Recent news reports (here, here and here) have highlighted a shareholder proposal that has been initiated in preparation for the annual general meeting of Alembic Limited to be held on 28 July 2017. The shareholder in question is Unifi Capital Private Limited who is said (though not verified) to be holding 3% shares in Alembic.

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  • Minimizing the Liability of Directors: SEBI’s Order in the Zylog Case

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  • Shareholder Primacy in India: So Near and Yet So Far!

    [The following guest post is contributed by Professor Bala N. Balasubramanian, who is an Adjunct Professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.][1] The scholarly debate on primacy among the shareholders, boards and the executive in corporate governance is intellectually as challenging as it is yet inconclusive, although more recent trends around the world would

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  • Delaware Supreme Court on Board Independence

    Issues of board independence, and particularly the position and role of independent directors, have resurfaced to the fore in India in recent months. Given this scenario, it may be useful to consider developments relating to board independence occurring elsewhere. Here, a ruling last month from the Delaware Supreme Court on the determination of board independence

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  • Et tu Tata!

    [The following guest post is contributed by Professor Bala N. Balasubramanian, who is an Adjunct Professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad] Recent developments at the Tata Group in general and Tata Sons particularly have shaken corporate India in terms of standards of good governance in companies. The group had meticulously built a reputation

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  • Appointment and Removal of Independent Directors: Need for Reform?

    The removal this week by three Tata group companies of Mr. Nusli Wadia as an independent director from each of them has reinvigorated some of the debate surrounding board independence from a conceptual standpoint. This has provided critics of board independence with more fodder. In the past, there was anecdotal evidence that whenever there were

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