affairs ministry

The Committee on Comprehensive Regulation for Credit Rating Agencies (CRAs), set up by the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance under the Chairmanship of Dr. K.P. Krishnan, Joint Secretary (Capital Markets) with representatives from all the financial sector regulators, has felt that prima facie there is no immediate concern about the operations and activities of CRAs in India even in the context of the recent financial crisis. Full Article

The government plans to introduce a bill to amend the Companies Act in the budget session of parliament to enable convergence of Indian accounting standards with the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). "The ministry will carry out the exercise for necessary amendments in the Companies Act in the forthcoming budget session of parliament," said a statement from the corporate affairs ministry. Full Article

The mammoth fraud at IT major Satyam, involving over Rs 14,000 crore as per CBI, proved to be the most brazen swindling act, forcing the government to re-write corporate governance rules during 2009 and tighten the norms for chartered accountants. While the investigating agencies had a tough time going through voluminous documents to get to the extent of the scam and uncover the modus-operandi of the fraud, disclosed by the company’s founder and then chief B Ramalinga .. Full Article

The Corporate Affairs Ministry is expected to bring out the code on corporate governance in a year's time. Mr Salman Khursheed, Minister of State for Corporate Affairs, said on Monday that the final code would be based on the draft common minimum code, which would be out for public review by the third week of December. Full Article

The government is examining a proposal seeking to split the compensation package of independent directors into fixed and variable components to ensure they play an active role in the affairs of companies. The variable component will be linked to the attendance at the board meetings, an official with the minsitry of corporate affairs told to a leading newspaper. Full Article

Making clear its commitment to converge Indian accounting norms with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) by 2011, the government on Wednesday said all concerns of the industry would be addressed before convergence takes place. “We stand by our commitment to converge the Indian accounting norms with the IFRS and have synchronised the views of all stakeholders,” corporate affairs ministry secretary R Bandyopadhay said at a CII event. Full Article

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.. Full Article

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. Full Article