Acquisitions of shares or control of a publicly listed Indian company are governed by the provisions of the SEBI (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulations, 1997 (a.k.a. the Takeover Code). Although this piece of regulation is only about a decade old, it has been tested several times in transactions and before SEBI, the appellate tribunal and courts owing to its intricate set of legal provisions.
In an attempt to break down these complexities and to aid readers of the Code in an easy-to-use manner, a new website (http://www.takeovercode.com/) has been launched. This is essentially for the benefit of companies, investment banks as well as regulators. Business Standard has a report highlighting some of the key features:
“The portal, dubbed as a one-stop online solution for intricacies of Indian takeover laws, through its research-led content, aims to inform investors and stakeholders about the complexities of takeover laws in India and make the process of acquisition compliances-efficient and transparent by harnessing the power of the Internet.
…Sebi’s takeover code is considered as one of the most complicated in Indian legal jurisprudence.
Consequently, many corporates fail to comply with such complexities leading to imposition of penalties and interpretative disputes and litigations, Vijay said.
Takeovercode.Com intends to simplify the complexities involved with its elaborative compliance reporting, innovative and useful calculators to perform a plethora of functions and advanced search engines to provide up-to-minute information on takeovers, he added.”
