We take the pleasure in announcing that CDSL Ventures Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Central Depository Services (India) Limited (CDSL), has designed an electronic voting system as an alternative to the paper-based postal ballot process, to facilitate voting on company resolutions. This system was inaugurated on November 17, 2009 by Hon’ble Minister Shri Salman Khurshid, Ministry of Corporate Affairs.

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs has established Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs (IICA) to act as the capacity building support for the officers / officials of the Ministry on issues relating to effective corporate functioning and regulation. The Institute can also design and deliver training programmes on such areas relating to corporate laws and regulations on specific requests from concerned Ministry / Department / Organisation. Giving this information in the Rajya Sabha, Shri Salman Khurshid, Minister of Corporate Affairs, said in a written reply that an elaborate regulatory framework is in place to deal with cases like Satyam scam.

Acting chairman of Company Law Board R Vasudevan was arrested by CBI for allegedly taking bribe of Rs seven lakh from a company secretary to give a favourable verdict to a media house. Mr. Vasudevan was arrested from his official residence at HUDCO Palace in south Delhi late last night while he was allegedly accepting the bribe from Manoj Banthia, who was also nabbed.

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs is all set to introduce a governance code for unlisted companies on the lines of the one for listed firms to encourage more companies to register on the stock exchanges. Elaborate disclosures and compliance with governance code is seen as one big reason why many companies do not want to raise public funds and list on exchanges.

Class Action lawsuits have recently made to the front page news, more particularly in western countries. The reason being the sudden fall (bankruptcy) of financial industry giants like Freddie Mac, Wachovia, AIG to name a few and the consequent losses suffered by large number of investors amounting to millions of dollars.

The new Bill, which is likely to come up in the Budget session in 2010, proposes no cap on the remuneration of CEOs, letting the shareholders decide the issue. Thanks to the Companies Law Bill 2009, the expression ‘shareholders’ democracy’ is gaining in popularity. The Government argues that shareholders should have a say in deciding the managerial remuneration. But what does shareholders democracy actually mean?

The government is planning to permit corporate houses to set up higher educational institutions — like multi-disciplinary universities and colleges — by floating a separate not-for-profit entity under Section 25 of the Companies Act 1956.

The Corporate Affairs Ministry wants to introduce a new concept called the ‘knowledge test’ to find out if directors had previous knowledge of a company’s wrongful acts. As a first step, it would be ensured that the board processes are totally transparent. If it is found that the board papers had a mention of any wrongful act, and a director to whom the papers were circulated did not get his objections recorded in the minutes of the meeting, then he would be deemed to have colluded to commit that wrongful act.

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) wants to shed its stern regulatory image and acquire a gentler, corporate-friendly reputation. The new mantra is to be a facilitator in corporate growth instead of just another regulator. The mantra is now being translated into action. For example, to cut out subjectivity in decisions, MCA has decided that field officers will not conduct any scrutiny of company balance sheets or send notices based on personal judgments or external tips.

The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has decided to conduct a quarterly scrutiny of the end-use of funds raised through initial public offers (IPO). To this end, the ministry has directed all Registrar of Companies (RoC) to coordinate with the stock exchanges to access the quarterly balance sheets of all companies that have come out with IPOs in the recent past.