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.

The Corporate Affairs Minister, Mr Salman Khurshid, on Wednesday said that the Companies Bill, 2009 will also have provisions for Class Action suits that will allow investors to seek compensations from companies. At a workshop to discuss the Bill, Mr Khurshid said, “Compensation cases in India are a long-drawn-out process, with few success stories. Within the current framework of the company law there is no provision for compensation for shareholders in the event of negligence or fraud being committed by company directors.

The Corporate Affairs Ministry said on Monday that around 30 per cent of the 80,000 public limited companies are not filing their annual returns.The Ministry has asked the Registrar of Companies (RoC) not to strike off the names of companies by classifying them as defunct, even if they have not filed their annual returns for three years. This is to find out if any of such companies have committed violations of law.

The CLB cannot exercise its inherent powers to pass orders without jurisdiction or in utter disregard to orders passed by the Supreme Court or the High Court; an interim order passed by the CLB without jurisdiction and without giving reasons and in utter disregard to the orders passed by the Supreme Court and the High Court cannot be sustained.

The Government is planning to establish a regulator for the growing tribe of insolvency professionals, who specialise in rehabilitation or winding up of sick companies. The Companies Bill, 2009 has given formal recognition to insolvency experts as professionals for the first time.  It was felt that there should be a regulator for insolvency professionals, they [...]

In a bid to avoid accounting frauds of the type that hit Satyam Computers, now called Mahindra Satyam, in January this year, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has decided to scrutinise the account books of all registered companies — listed as well as unlisted — in the country.

Quarterly cost audit by internal auditors in the listed companies should be explored in consultation with the market regulator SEBI to improve corporate governance, an expert group appointed by Corporate Affairs Ministry has suggested. ”The possibility of introducing quarterly limited review of cost details, in case of listed companies, may be examined in consultation with SEBI,” [...]

1.  Key Managerial Personnel (Clause 178) (a)  Definition As per clause 178, every company belonging to such class or description of companies as may be prescribed shall have Whole-Time Key Managerial Personnel (KMP).

What is meant by Hostile Takeover? Hostile Takeover is a type of acquisition in which, the company being purchased (Target Company) does not want to be purchased at all, or does not want to be purchased by a particular buyer (Acquirer) that is making a bid. In other words, the Acquirer intends to gain control [...]

The New Companies Bill 2009, which seeks to replace the existing Companies Act of 1956, has already factored in the lessons from the Satyam incident and would look at strengthening the role of Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) in order to arm it with legal and statutory powers to probe corporate misdoings, according to Mr [...]