The issue of the burden of proof of the securities regulator in insider trading cases has been a vexed one. This is particularly because direct evidence is often hard to come by, and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has to resort to circumstantial evidence. The jurisprudence thus far has borne some recognition of the practical difficulties surrounding the regulator’s evidentiary...
The Applicability of Insider Trading Regulations to Pooled Investment Vehicles
[Sikha Bansal is a Partner and Aisha Begum Ansari a Manager at Vinod Kothari & Co] From a surveillance and compliance perspective, the SEBI (Prohibition of Insider Trading) Regulations, 2015 (‘PIT Regulations’) focus on designated persons (DPs). Trading in securities of the listed company by DPs is sought to be “regulated, monitored and reported” by the Code of Conduct (regulation 9 read with...
ESG Rating Providers: Analyzing India’s Proposed Regulatory Framework
[Paridhi Jain is a 5th year B.B.A., LL.B. (Hons.) student at Symbiosis Law School, Noida] Once a niche market for investors, environmental, social, governance (“ESG”) investing has grown over the past few years. The pandemic is being referred to as a “sustainability” crisis and one that has re-invigorated focus on climate change, acting as a wake-up call for investors to prioritize a more...
Social Impact Investing in India- A Road Less Travelled
[Aashna Soman is a 5th-year B.A., LL.B. (Hons.) student at ILS Law College, Pune] The concept of impact investing arose to fill the lack of public resources to fund development programs in financially poor countries. Impact Bonds (“IBs”) are innovative financial instruments that pull private investment to finance high-impact social programs. The implementation of impact bonds aids in financing...
The Relevance of ‘Profit Making’ in Insider Trading: A Paradox
[Aaj Sikri and Kartik Arya are penultimate year BA LLB (Hons) students at Jindal Global Law School, Sonipat] The insider trading norms in India have evolved with time. Before the implementation of SEBI (Prohibition of Insider Trading) Regulations, 2015 (“PIT Regulations”), intention was relevant while deciding whether an insider has engaged in Insider Trading or not. The same was also upheld in...
Shadow Trading – An Indian Perspective
[Mihir Deshmukh is an Associate at Finsec Law Advisors, Mumbai and Bhavya Solanki is a 4th-year student at Maharashtra National Law University, Mumbai.] Coined by Mehta, Reeb, and Zhao, shadow trading is a theory of insider trading, which postulates that confidential information of a company could also be relevant for other economically-linked companies, and insiders could profit from trading in...
Non-Fungible Tokens: An Indian Perspective
[Aiyushi Mehrotra is a 4th Year B.A., LLB. student at Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar] Non-fungible tokens (“NFTs”) are digital blockchain tokens that identify ownership or particulars of unique items, whether they be digital or real in form. They are traded and programmed in the same way as cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum, but that is where the similarities...
SAFE Notes: A Novel Funding and ‘Safe’ Method?
[Devansh Parekh and Tanishq Mohta are BLS. LL.B. students at the Government Law College, Mumbai] When early-stage companies set out to raise capital, they are often presented with multiple fundraising vehicles to accomplish their goal. Over the years, hybrid instruments for investments such as Convertible Compulsory Debentures (“CCD”) and Compulsory Convertible Preference Shares (“CCPS”) have...
IFSCA-GNLU Certificate Course on Financial Market Laws
[Announcement on behalf of Gujarat National Law University (GNLU)] The commercial dialogue among business entities is incomplete without financial communications. The role of law, specifically the financial market (laws and regulations), is significant to regulate the financial activities of the business entities in the financial market. Since 1991, with the liberalized economic policy (Indian...
Directors’ Liability and Climate Risk in India
Climate change has garnered significant attention given that it poses a serious challenge to sustainable development. No longer is it merely within the domain of voluntary conduct on the part of corporations. Instead, it is a material financial risk that corporations encounter, thereby imposing duties on the boards of directors of corporations to recognise and address climate risk. In “Directors’...
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