Corporate Law

The corporate landscape of India has been conservative in its dealings, as outright battles for control are a rarity as far as the field of M&A goes. In a world where most mergers or acquisitions take place on a cordial note, with both sides as willing parties, a hostile takeover would not have been imaginable even after Swaraj Paul’s infamous attempt to takeover Delhi Cloth Mills from the Shri Ram family and Escorts Limited from the Nanda family. ......

The Competition (Amendment) Bill, 2022 (Bill No. 185 of 2022) (the "Bill") was introduced in the Lok Sabha on August 5, 2022. It seeks to, "carry out certain essential structural changes in the governing structure of the Competition Commission of India and changes to substantive provisions to address the needs for new age markets," and amend the Competition Act, 2002 (the "Act"), following the circulation of the draft Competition (Amendment) Bill, 2020 and the 2019 report issued by the Completion Law Review Committee. ......

Pursuant to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015 ("Listing Regulations"), companies listed on the Indian stock exchanges are required to submit a statement which describes the shareholding pattern separately for each class of securities in the format prescribed by the Securities and Exchange Board of India ("SEBI") . ......

In the year 2020, work from home gained popularity and various sectors in the country were able to shift gears and adopt a total work from home or a hybrid work model. However, companies in Special Economic Zones faced challenges with enabling a work from home structure for their employees due to a lack of uniform guidelines/directions for the same. ......

The Companies Act, 2013 was passed in 2013 with the aim to revamp the Indian corporate governance regime. The new act superseded the erstwhile Companies Act, 1956 and is based upon the three pillars of liberalization, globalization and privatization. ......

The Securities and Exchange Board of India ("SEBI"), vide its notification dated August 13, 2021, introduced the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Share Based Employee Benefits and Sweat Equity) Regulations, 2021 ("2021 Regulations") . This was after an expert group, constituted to merge the SEBI (Share Based Employee Benefits) Regulations, 2014 and the SEBI (Issue of Sweat Equity) Regulations, 2002 into the 2021 Regulations recommended various changes to the earlier regulations. ... ...

On May 12, 2022, the Supreme Court considered the interplay between the Indian Contract Act, 1872 (“Contract Act”) and the Depositories Act, 1996 (“Depositories Act”) in relation to the pledge of shares and held that the Contract Act does not recognise the sale of the pledged goods by the pawnee to himself in the event of default of payment by the pawnor. ......

In recent years, ESG, or environmental, social and governance, investing has slowly and steadily made its way to becoming an investment strategy whereby investors put their money in companies that are looking to make the world a better place. ......

The Government of Delhi aims to create business leaders and entrepreneurs and make Delhi the “start-up destination of the world”. With this aspiration at the helm, on May 5, 2022, the Delhi Cabinet approved and announced the “Delhi Start-up Policy” (“Policy”). The Policy aims to provide an enabling ecosystem for an innovation-based economy to help Delhi become a global innovation hub. ......