Tag: Securities Regulation
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SEBI Announces Corporate Governance Reforms
(The following post has been written by, and uploaded on behalf of, Professor Umakanth) Over a year ago, SEBI had issued a consultation paper that suggested several reforms to corporate governance norms in India that are contained in clause 49 of the listing agreement. The primary purpose of SEBI’s effort was to integrate the stipulations…
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SEBI ICDR (Amendment) Regulations, 2014
[The following post is contributed by Shampita Das of Vinod Kothari & Co. She can be contacted at shampita@vinodkothari.com] On 4 February 2014, SEBI issued a Notification amending the SEBI (Issue of Capital and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2009 (‘ICDR Regulations’) to make grading of an initial public offer (‘IPO’) by one or more credit rating…
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Penalty for Late Disclosure of Shareholding
Last week, an adjudicating officer of SEBI issued an order imposing an aggregate penalty of Rs. 50 lakhs (Rs. 5 million) on certain promoter entities of Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) for delayed filing of disclosures regarding the shareholding of such entities under the SEBI takeover regulations. It came to SEBI’s notice that there were delayed…
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Gold Purchase Schemes and CIS
In 2013, an Ordinance was promulgated to enhance SEBI’s powers to regulate investment pools. The Ordinance introduced section 11AA of the SEBI Act, which details the parameters of a collective investment scheme (CIS). It states that “pooling of funds under any scheme or arrangement” involving a corpus of Rs. 100 crores or more shall be…
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SAT on Insider Trading and the Role of the Compliance Officer
A couple of years ago, we had discussed the order of SEBI’s adjudicating officer imposing a penalty of Rs. 5 lakhs (Rs. 0.5 million) on the compliance officer of Satyam Computer Services Limited. We had noted that this imposed a somewhat unduly onerous obligation on compliance officers and wondered “whether a different outcome would ensue…
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SEBI Proposal for Infrastructure Investment Trusts
Recognizing the deficit in financing infrastructure development in India, SEBI has floated a proposal for a separate investment vehicle for infrastructure investments. Last week, it issued a Consultation Paper on Infrastructure Investment Trusts, on which comments are invited from the public by January 20, 2014. SEBI’s rationale is to ensure that the lack of an…
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Overhauling the Insider Trading Regulations: Part 3
[This is a continuation of two previous posts (here and here) in this series] Trading Plan The Committee has recommended the concept of a trading plan, which is novel in the Indian context but prevalent in some other jurisdictions. This concept has been recommended almost on an experimental basis, to be reconsidered by SEBI based…
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Overhauling the Insider Trading Regulations: Part 2
[This is a continuation of a previous post in this series] Operative Provisions The operative provisions (or charging provisions, as they are referred to by the Committee) go to the heart of the prohibition on insider trading, which also constitutes an offence for the breach thereof. The scope of insider trading usually tends to capture…
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Overhauling the Insider Trading Regulations: Part 1
Background The legal regime governing insider trading in India is at least two decades old. The SEBI (Prohibition of Insider Trading) Regulations, 1992 were one of the initial few regulations that were prescribed by SEBI upon its establishment. However, the experience regarding the implementation of the legal regime on insider trading has been fraught with…
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The Legalities of Bitcoin
The phenomenon of Bitcoin has taken the financial world by storm. A form of currency, although it came into existence only in 2009, it has increased exponentially both in usage and value. It has been said that the value of Bitcoin has appreciated by a whopping 5,000% in less than a year. This form of…
