RECENT UPDATES – MINISTRY OF CORPORATE AFFAIRS
- MCA has constituted a Company Law Committee via order dated 18-Sep-2019 to improve ease of doing business, fostering improved corporate compliance and to address emerging issues impacting the working of corporates in the country.
- The government has created the Company Law Committee to look at re-categorization of certain offenses under the Companies At as civil offenses as well as review other provisions of the Companies Act and the Limited Liability Partnerships Act 2008.
- The Committee consisting of 11 members, will be chaired by Shri. Injeti Srinivas, Secretary, MCA
- The terms of reference of the Committee:-
- Analyze the nature of the offenses (compoundable and non-compoundable) and submit its recommendation as to whether any of the offences could be re-categorized as ‘civil wrongs’.
- Examine the feasibility of introducing settlement mechanism, deferred prosecution agreement, etc., within the fold of the Companies Act, 2013;
- Study the existing framework under the Limited Liability Partnership Act, 2008 and suggest measures to plug the gaps, if any, while at the same time enhancing the Ease of Doing Business;
- Propose measures to further de-clog and improve the functioning of the NCLT;
- Suggest measures for removing any bottlenecks in the overall functioning of the statutory bodies like SFIO, IEPFA, NFRA, etc. under the Act;
- Identify specific provisions under the Companies Act, 2013 and the Limited Liability Partnership Act, 2008 which are required to be amended to bring about greater Ease of Living for the corporate stakeholders, including but not restricted to review of Forms under the two Acts;
- Any other relevant recommendation as it may deem necessary.
- The MCA has released the updated FAQs related to DIR-3 KYC on its website.
The FAQs answer relevant questions e.g. who is required to file DIR-3 KYC, who can file KYC through DIR KYC web service, how does OTP functionality in DIR KYC work, etc. Please refer the following link for the same-
http://www.mca.gov.in/MinistryV2/dir3kycfaq.html
- The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), has notified that the Costing Taxonomy, 2019 to cater to the annual filing of CRA-4 (Cost audit report) for FY 2018-19 is under development.
Costing Taxonomy 2019 to cater to the annual filing of CRA-4 (Cost audit report) for FY 2018-19 is under development. The companies which are required to file CRA-4 (Cost audit report) for FY 2018-19 are required to use Costing Taxonomy 2019 only. Those who have already filed CRA-4 (Cost Audit Report) using the existing Costing Taxonomy 2015 for FY 2018-19 are NOT required to file afresh. However, those companies which are yet to file their Cost Audit Reports are requested to await deployment of Costing Taxonomy 2019 on MCA21 portal. Once the Costing Taxonomy 2019 is deployed, sufficient time would be given for filing CRA-4 without levying additional fee.
- MCA has notified on its website that as per the Companies (Incorporation) Fourth Amendment Rules, 2018 dated 18th December 2018 a new form RD GNL-5 and changes to Form RD-1 has been notified.
The Companies (Incorporation)Fourth Amendment Rules, 2018 has amended the provisions for making an Application for approval of concerned Regional Director under Section 2(41) for change of the financial year and Application under section 14 for the conversion of a public company into a private company, shall be filed in
e-Form No.RD-1 and accordingly a new form is also introduced to comply with the directions of RD to the applicant/person or the company to furnish such information, or to rectify defects or incompleteness and to re-submit such application within a period of fifteen days, in
e-Form No. RD-GNL-5. It has been notified by the MCA that both forms (revised) are available on the MCA21 Company Forms Download page for filing purposes w.e.f. 29-Aug-2019
RECENT UPDATES –RBI
- The RBI has notified the Foreign Exchange Management (Deposit) (Amendment) Regulations, 2019 w.r.t Acceptance of Deposits by the issue of Commercial Papers.
The Regulation 6(3) of the Foreign Exchange Management (Deposit) Regulations, 2016, in terms of which a Company may accept deposits through the issue of Commercial Paper, has been reviewed vis-à-vis other Statutes/ Regulations notably Section 45 U(b) of RBI Act, 1934 describing CP as one of the Money Market Instruments and Section 2(c) of Companies (Acceptance of Deposits), Rules 2014 which excludes any amount received against the issue of, inter alia, CPs from the definition of deposits. It has also been considered that Foreign Exchange Management (Transfer or Issue of Security by a Person Resident outside India) Regulations, 2017, already allow investments in CPs issued by the Indian Companies. Therefore, with a view to bringing inconsistency in statutory provisions/regulations relating to Commercial Papers (CPs), the provisions of Regulation 6(3) of FEMA 5(R)/2016-RB has been deleted vide GOI Notification No. FEMA 5(R)(2)/2019-RB dated July 16, 2019.
RECENT UPDATES –EMPLOYMENT LAWS
- Authorities have issued circular to provide E-nomination facility for EPF account holders
A member can avail of the e-nomination facility by logging in to their account on the EPFO’s member sewa portal. The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has launched an e-nomination facility for EPF members whose Aadhaar is linked and verified on the member sewa portal and whose UAN (Universal Account Number) is activated on the portal to use this facility. Further, your photograph must be available on the member sewa portal. According to EPFO rules, an individual can only nominate his/her family members. However, if an individual does not have a family, then he can nominate any one person. Now, this nomination will become invalid in case of the member acquires a family.
Further, according to the circular, for members who have not filed nomination, a message will pop up when they login into their account to file their e-nomination. Filing of online pension claim is also dependent on the availability of nomination by the member. The list of such employees who have not filed the nomination is also displayed in the login of the employers. According to the circular, this facility has been developed by the C-DAC and the e-sign facility has also been developed by them. The availability of e-nomination will also help in actuarial valuation of the pension fund.
- Code of Wages, 2019
The Government has notified the Code after it received assent from the President of India on August 8, 2019.The Code has subsumed four labour laws — Minimum Wages Act, Payment of Wages Act, Payment of Bonus Act and Equal Remuneration Act.
After the enactment of the Code, all the four Acts stand repealed. Code also provides uniform definitions, reduces the number of authorities and changes the nature of inspection, to bring transparency and accountability to the implementation of the law. There were various definitions of wages in various labour laws, leading to litigation besides difficulty in its implementation. Under the Code, the definition has been simplified and is expected to reduce litigation and also reduce compliance cost for employers.
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Last Updated: 26th September 2019
This article is contributed by:
Ruchita Sharma
Senior Associate, Legal
