Corporate Law

In one of our Articles published in September-Amendments to the Negotiable Instruments Act, we discussed the amendments that were brought to the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 ("Act") with an intention of amending the law related to promissory notes, bills of exchange and cheques. The Act has been amended time and again to ensure and enhance trust in negotiable instruments. With an aim to further streamline theAct, the Central Government incorporated Sections 143-A and 148 vide  Negotiable Instruments (Amendment) Act, 2018 ("Amended Act"). These new sets of provisions have been effective since 1st September 2018....

In January 2009, India witnessed one of its biggest corporate scandals - the ‘Satyam scandal’ also referred to as ‘India’s Enron’. Satyam Computers Services Limited ("SCSL") was under the microscope for fraudulent activity and misrepresentation of its accounts to its board, stock exchanges, regulators, investors and all other stakeholders. Thereafter, shareholders of SCSL, approximately 300,000 were unsuccessful in claiming damages worth millions due to the absence of the provision for filing a class action suit under the Companies Act, 1956.American investors on the other hand were able to claim their part of damages in the US courts through a class action suit against SCSL....

If one were to be asked whether Dim Sum, Matador, Samurai, Kangaroo, Maple and Bull Dog share anything in common, one would be hard-pressed for an appropriate reply.To answer the question posed, the above are all international bonds. International bonds are debt investment instruments issued in a country by a non-domestic entity, in the currency of that non-domestic country. These bonds have been colourfully named, as demonstrated, to evoke an association with their home country. “Dim-Sum” bonds are the Chinese variant, the Japanese version are the lofty “Samurai” bonds, and one can probably guess which countries Matador, Maple and Kangaroo belong to....

On May 1^st, 2019, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs ("MCA") released e-form MSME 1 ("MSME 1"), requiring all companies obtaining supplies of goods/ services from micro and small enterprises ("Enterprises") and whose respective payments to such Enterprises exceed forty-five days from the date of acceptance or the date of deemed acceptance of such goods/ services to file MSME 1, by 30^th May, 2019....

If a tale of poison pills, dawn raids and shark repellents were to be narrated, one could reasonably assume that the tale would feature at least one jaded well-heeled spy. And it would not fall very far from the truth, as hostile takeovers have typically been imbued with the intrigue of a classic thriller. ...

In a caricatured simplified world, there are three broad sources of finance: equity, debt, and borrowing. In each case, in terms of origin, funds can come from domestic and foreign sources. Interestingly, when one looks at Balance of Payments (BoP) representation of a country, it majorly comprises of the following two components: investments and borrowing....

“We all know that women are half the world and hold up half the sky but where are they when it comes to equality?” - Leela Seth ...

In order to catalyse entrepreneurship and let the start-up segment flourish, the Indian government has issued a notification dated February 19, 2019 ("Notification"), which sets out certain tax exemptions available to start-ups under the Income-tax Act, 1961 ("Act")....

The Companies (Amendment) Ordinance 2018 ("2018 Ordinance"), issued on November 2, 2018 brought about significant changes to certain provisions of the Companies Act, 2013 ("Act"). The 2018 Ordinance was passed by the Lok Sabha, though could not be taken up by the Rajya Sabha and which was due to expire on January 21, 2019. In order to give continuity to the amendments introduced by the 2018 Ordinance, it was re-promulgated on January 12, 2019 by another ordinance i.e. the Companies Amendment Ordinance 2019 ("Ordinance") on January 12, 2019 with its provisions effective from November 2, 2018....