The Board of Approval of the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) met here today to consider proposals for setting up of Special Economic Zones and also to approve other miscellaneous requests pertaining to SEZs. Addressing the Board of Approval members, the Chairman informed that so far 574 formal approvals have been granted for setting up of SEZs out of which 353 have been notified.
For the first time in the history of the stock market, investors who lost out on allotment of shares due to a scam will receive compensation from money recovered from scamsters. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee will on Monday hand over the cheques to investors who lost out because scamsters cornered the shares meant for retail investors in initial public offerings (IPO) during 2003-05.
Over 4.7 crore (47 million) employees are likely to get an interest of 8.5 per cent in 2010-11 on their provident fund deposits of about Rs 2.5 lakh crore (Rs 2.5 trillion), a return authorities have been giving for the past five years. The decision is likely to be taken on Friday at the meeting of the Central Board of Trustees (CBT), the apex decision making body of the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (FPFO), turning down the trade unions’ demand for 8.75 per cent as it would result in huge deficit.
Accounting regulator ICAI has called for excluding land value from the proposed service tax on the realty sector, saying land is a state subject. “When a prospective buyer makes an advance payment to the builder against booking of a specified unit in a building, that part also includes a price towards the land on which the building is being constructed and treating the entire amount being paid by the prospective buyer to the builder would amount to imposing a tax on transfer of land which is a state subject,” ICAI said.
RBI has, on 11 February 2010, amended the Non-Banking Financial (Non- Deposit Accepting or Holding) Companies Prudential Norms (Reserve Bank) Directions, 2007 [NBFC Directions] to introduce a 4th category of Non Banking Financial Company [NBFC] viz. “Infrastructure Finance Company” [IFC]. This is in addition to the existing 3 categories of NBFCs viz. Asset Finance Company (AFC), Loan Company (LC) and Investment Company (IC).
As per the information available on the website of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), Government of India, a company would be deemed to be a vanishing company, if it is found to have: 1. Failed to file returns with Registrar of Companies (ROC) for a period of 2 years; 2. Failed to file returns with Stock Exchange (SE) for a period of 2 years (if it continues to be a listed company);
To curb illegal trading in commodity market, the regulator FMC has asked exchanges to impose a penalty of Rs 100,000-500,000, with effect from April 1, on brokers carrying unauthorised trading activities.Besides introducing a penalty for illegal trading, the Forward Markets Commission has announced a uniform penalty structure for all the commodity exchanges, while raising the penalty amount for various other offences.
The Cabinet today approved a proposal to introduce the Prevention of Torture Bill, 2010 in the Parliament. This is a step towards ratification of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 9th December, 1975 [resolution 3452(XXX)]. India had signed the Convention in October, 1997.
The pressure on accounting firm Ernst & Young continues to grow as an oversight board, created under the Sarbanes-Oxley accounting reform act of 1992, launches an investigation into the firm’s role in Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy.
Almost 75 per cent of corporate India surveyed felt the overall incidence of fraud was rising, according to India Fraud Survey Report 2010 by KPMG. The report also pointed out that e-commerce and computer-related frauds would be major concerns to companies in the coming years. The survey was conducted across 1,000 firms, both Indian business establishments and public institutions, with an annual turnover of Rs 500 crore to over Rs 10,000 crore.
