Ministry of Corporate Affairs practically suspended right to be a Designated Partners (DP) for young promoters who want to promote a start-up limited liability partnership. Now, no outsider of corporate India may enter into dream life of corporate India through limited liability partnership route. He needs to promote a company to fulfil his dream.
Vide Notification S.O. 351(E) dated 23rd January 2018 Section 1 and 4 of the Companies (Amendment) Act, 2017 came into force on 26th January 2018. According to a draft notification placed on the website of Ministry of Corporate Affairs[i], Central Government appoints 9th February 2018 as the date on which 42 other sections and a major part of section 2 of the Companies (Amendment) Act, 2017 came into force.
UPDATE: The Notification S. O. 630(E) dated 9th February 2018 published in the Gazette of India on 12th February 2018 uploaded with the digital signature of publisher dated 16th February 2018.
Here is a bird’s eye view.
Posted in Chapter I - CA2013, Companies Act 2013
Every company must be a business organization. Being business organization, a company has business activities. In the Companies Act, 2013 “principal business activities” is a major reporting requirement. According to Section 92(1)(a), every company shall prepare a return (hereinafter referred to as the annual return) in the prescribed form containing the particulars as they stood on the close of the financial year regarding its principal business activities. Section 185 as amended has reference to principal business activities as a major condition for a loan to directors and related concerns.
Interestingly, proposed to be a director is a legally valid official status, now. This is a period between two board meetings one proposing him to be a director of an existing company and second board meeting actually appointing him as director. This status comes into being on 26th January 2018 due to the amendment in the Companies (Appointment and qualification of Directors) Rules, 2014.
Posted in Chapter XI - CA2013, Companies Act 2013
Tagged Appointment of Director, Form DIR - 3
Happy Republic Day 2018!!
From this Republic Day 2018, company secretaries will start using this headline day to day in reference to the incorporation of companies in India. The government of India these days works keeping ist both eyes on world banks’ ease of doing a business index. Ease of starting and closing businesses are the prime focus. The Companies (Amendment) Act, 2017 notified on 3rd January 2018 primly aims to ease the incorporation of companies among other objects. Now, three rules are amended to facilitate to make incorporation a “child’s play”.
Among strike off companies waiting for revival considering it a lost opportunity where their revival orders from the National Company Law Tribunal comes after the expiry of the scheme. Condonation of Delay Scheme, 2018 essentially is about of condonation of delay in filing of annual accounts and annual returns by defaulting companies. The scheme is not for the revival of strike off companies nor imposes any restriction on normal route available for condonation of delay given under Section 460 of the Companies Act, 2013. A company failed to have the benefit of condonation of delay under the scheme may avail normal route. Let us discuss briefly.
Disqualification of directors certainly is a hot topic among professionals practising corporate laws. Irrespectively of popular perception, the list compiled and released by Ministry of Corporate Affairs does not confer any disqualification to any director. These directors were already disqualified. In a serious violation, many of these directors might have failed to communicate about their disqualification to companies appointing or reappointing them after the actual date of disqualification. Such failure has penal consequences. This blog post will discuss serious consequences of the failure of compliance with law and procedures after incurring disqualification by a director.
“Daag Achchhe haiN (Stains are good)” This must be a tagline of a politician or may of a Strike-off company. Congratulations to all strike-off companies with income tax proceedings. A circular issued by Central Board of Direct Taxes may bring back life to these strike-off companies. It is reported that on or before 4th January 2018, NCLT, vide its interim orders, directs 46 strike –off companies to be deemed to be restored to its original number and entitles petitioner, Income Tax Department to raise demand by serving notice in accordance with law.
Every Indian wants action against others who are not in compliance with law and disregard law of land. Same time, Ministry of Corporate Affairs was forced to introduce the condonation of Delay Scheme, 2018 within 1140 days (roughly 3 years) from the conclusion of earlier such scheme. Between these two schemes, the name of lakhs of companies was removed from Registry and list of Directors 3,09,614 disqualified directors released to the public domain because of such non – compliance. With fear of legal actions, corporate India and professional India welcome this scheme with critics. The strong analysis ahead.
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On-demand, Index of Companies Law Posts as updated on 31st December 2017 is uploaded here: Index of Company Law Posts 2017
Posted in Chapter I - CA2013, Companies Act 2013
The Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF) educates investors and protect their interests. The Companies Act, 2013 brought provisions for transfer of shares of untraceable shareholders to the IEPF. The IEPF shall hold shares transferred to it as custodian and such transfer is not a statutory vesting of any property.
The Recent order of Delhi court discussed these rules in details. The High Court order that It is imperative that the Central Government gives publicity to the transfer of shares, by virtue of the provisions (not of individual companies) to inform the public, and ensures a simple, as well as compact form with the attendant procedure, is notified, for reclaiming them.
Now, this post discusses some practical issues may be faced by innocent investors residing far interior places while reclaiming their shares.
These are few cases where either investor or company needs awareness, education or clarity. The Government need an early step to retain the faith of investors and companies in the IEPF. The government should focus on the user-friendly website of MCA and IEPF.
My friend Gaurav Pingle pointed out in his article, the High Court in above-mentioned order has clarified that the shareholder continues to retain ‘title’ of the shares but loses ‘agency’. However, the Court has also stated that the company is relieved from the responsibility of holding shares or reflecting it in its list of shareholders. This needs some fine tuning in law.
Posted in Chapter VIII - CA2013, Companies Act 2013
Conversion from a private company to public company is not news and has no legal hurdle also. On the other hand, a decision to convert itself into a public company is always big news. According to the second proviso to subsection (1) of Section 14 of the Companies Act, 2013, “any alteration having the effect of conversion of a public company into a private company shall not take effect except with the approval of the Tribunal which shall make such order as it may deem fit.”
When an applicant files a form for incorporation of a company, we need to select the designation and category of first directors in incorporation Form 32 (popularly called Spice) or wherever company appoints a director. There are four different categories of directors. We will discuss confusion regarding these categories of directors.
Posted in Chapter II - CA2013, Chapter XI - CA2013, Companies Act 2013
Tagged Additional Director, Alternate Director, chairman, chairperson, Director, Executive Director, Independent Director, Managing Dir, Managing Director, Nominee Director, Non - executive director, Professional Director, Promoter Director, Small shareholders’ Director, Whole – time Director
After the list of disqualified directors made public by Government of India, Many companies facing “no director on board” or “board below the quorum” situations. In last post here, we discussed the first situation. Now, we will discuss the second one.
“Disqualified directors are not directors in any Company”, this is fact under Section 164 and 167. In another word, A Company with all directors disqualified under Section 164 and 167 has no director at all. Such companies need new a set of directors immediately. The Companies Act, 2013 presume two situations where a company may be without Directors. We will discuss these two situations here.
Posted in Chapter XI - CA2013, Companies Act 2013
Tagged Appointment of Director, Back-end appointment of Directors, back-end insertion of director, Board without Directors, Disqualification of Directors, Full Board Disqualificatin, Full Board Resignation, Full Board vacation, Vacation of Office of Director
Before being launched a pilot project on 26th January 2016, central registration of companies was under consideration since long. However, The Central Government under the able leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched it silently and suddenly as a pilot project for the setting of Central Registry for Companies in India. Presently, central registry looks after only two functions: (a) Name Approval and (b) Company Incorporation.
Posted in Chapter II - CA2013, Companies Act 2013
Registered Valuers is a new concept in Indian corporate law introduced by the Companies Act, 2013. Earlier for various purposes like wealth tax assessment, we had different valuers. Chapter XVII, Section 247 of the Companies Act, 2013 make law for registered valuers. Years earlier, we have discussed section 247 here. Now, section 247 comes into force along with a removal of difficulty order, a delegation of powers, its rules, in October 2017.
Originally, neither the Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority (Accounting, Audit, Transfer and Refund) Rules, 2016 nor the Companies Act, 2013 have any mention of Nodal Officer except Form IEPF – 5. The Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority (Accounting, Audit, Transfer and Refund) Second Amendment Rules, 2017 first time bring this term in main rules.
Ministry of Corporate Affairs recently amended Indian companies, the Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority (Accounting, Audit, Transfer and Refund) Rules, 2016. The Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority (Accounting, Audit, Transfer and Refund) Second Amendment Rules, 2017 published in Official Gazette on 13th October 2017 and came into force on the same date. We discussed original rules here and earlier amended rules here. In this post, we will discuss amended law related transfer of shares related to unpaid dividend to the Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority.
The government of India in its crackdown against illicit money and money laundering marked 209,032 for removal of names from its register of companies as shell companies. It also disqualified about 200,000 directors. As happens with most bureaucratic exercises in India, present exercise also raised more questions than it answers. There is no definition of shell companies in Indian law. The term shell companies used widely to denote companies used as a vehicle for money laundering or criminal activities. The term itself denotes that main culprit may be someone else.
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