Establishment of Connectivity with both depositories NSDL and CDSL –Companies eligible for shifting from Trade for Trade Settlement (TFTS) to normal Rolling Settlement

The government has put its act together to see that the Company Law Board (CLB), the quasi-judicial body that gives verdicts on litigation and complaints that come under the purview of the Companies Act, gets a fresh set of members soon. This is in the backdrop of the arrest of R Vasudevan, the senior most CLB member, on November 24. This has left the board with just two members to hear the pending cases that run into thousands.

Vasudevan, who was director investigation and inspection ministry of corporate affairs before joining the CLB three months ago, was looking into high profile cases like the Satyam and the Sesa Goa fraud. “No we don’t need to relook, it is the SFIO that has done the investigation, in the beginning it was done at the level of Regional Director and Registrar of Companies and then it was taken over by the SFIO, so I don’t think we need to worry at all…,” Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said.

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 maximum number of listed companies in which an individual can serve as a director should not be more than seven, proposed the Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) to the ministry of corporate affairs (MCA). The proposal came in the light of ICSI view that a director needs to spend enough time to understand a company if he is to be involved in the decision-making process. At present, a person can hold the directorship of 15 listed companies.

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 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 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 [...]

A GOVERNMENT proposal to constitute a supervisory mechanism above the country’s three statutory institutes for accounting, company secretaryship and cost accounting and allowing their members to provide services in each other’s fields has been opposed by these regulators. Floated by the corporate affairs ministry, the proposal seeks to create an oversight mechanism that will oversee [...]