Tag: Securities Regulation
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Recent Restrictions on Short Selling in the US: Comparing the Indian Position
The steep fall in prices of several US investment banks and financial institutions, such as Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been attributed to false rumours leading to panic selling, which has been further exacerbated by “naked” short selling. This has necessitated emergency action on the part of the Federal Reserve to rescue
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Bulk Deals and Order Matching
The availability of income tax exemptions (on long term capital gains) for share transactions that are executed through stock exchanges have caused otherwise negotiated share sale and purchase deals to be implemented through the stock exchange mechanism. This would require parties to bear only the securities transaction tax (STT) at rates which are negligible compared
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Creating Debt and Securitisation Markets in India
One of the constant criticisms of the Indian financial markets has been the lack of a liquid and vibrant market for debt securities on the one hand and that for securitised instruments on the other. In separate moves announced on the same day (June 19, 2008), SEBI has sought to alleviate both these concerns. Debt
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Enabling SMEs Access the Capital Markets
Although the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) constitute a significant portion of India’s economy, they face several hurdles in accessing capital in a cost-effective manner. As far the capital markets are concerned, the SEBI (Disclosure and Investor Protection) Guidelines, 2000 provide several eligibility criteria for companies to qualify for being able to initiate public offerings.
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Participatory Notes and Disclosure Requirements
In an earlier post, we had discussed the decision of the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) setting aside a SEBI order that imposed a penalty of Rs. 1 crore on an FII for giving a false declaration regarding its issuance of participatory notes. Our guest contributor, Somasekhar Sundaresan, has written a column in The Business Standard
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Role of Rating Agencies
Credit rating agencies have come under fire on account of their role in the recent global financial crisis arising out of the repackaging of subprime mortgage debts. This has resulted in a call for tighter regulation of rating agencies. But, this revelation in Financial Times is startling: “Moody’s awarded incorrect triple-A ratings to billions of
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SEBI Eases Payment Norms in Public Offerings
On May 13, 2008, SEBI created a new method of payment or earmarking of funds for subscription to securities in a public offering. The press release states: “Easing of payment process in public / rights issue: The Board approved, in principle, the concept of marking lien on bank account as an alternative mode of payment
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FIIs and Offshore Instruments: Another SEBI Order Set Aside
Readers may recollect that the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) in 2005 overturned the order of SEBI prohibiting UBS, its affiliates and agents from issuing offshore derivative instruments (ODIs) with underlying Indian securities for a period of one year (on account of UBS’ failure to provide infromation about investors to whom it had issued such ODIs).
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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
