Corporate News - Weekly round up Week 4 November 2024 for professional student

1. Commerce secretary of Ministry of commerce and industry  Sunil Berthwal, with his official team visited Norvay to furthering th eobjectives of TEPA ( Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement). TEPA is a modern and ambitiious Trade agrement which India signed in with four developed nations.

2. India’s participation in various Side-events during CoP29 UN Climate Change Conference at Baku, Azerbaijan.

The important side events were-

a) Integrating Disaster Resilient Infrastructure into the Adaptation Strategies,

b) LeadIT (Leadership Group for Industry Transition) Member Meet,

c) India-Sweden Industry Transition Partnership (ITP) – Road to Belém,

d) Unlocking Investments for Climate Resilient and Sustainable Infrastructure in Small Island Developing Started (SIDS),

e) Energy Transitions for the Global South: Unleashing the role of solar for the global south, LeadIT Summit 2024 of members and Solarizing Communities through Women-led

f) Climate Action: Strengthening Adaptation, Unlocking Finance and Creating Jobs.

3. Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated Global Cooperative Conference in New

Delhi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi  inaugurated the ICA Global Cooperative Conference at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi on 25th November, 2024. For the first time, in 130 years long history of the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA), the Global Cooperative Conference and General Assembly are being organized in India. The International Cooperative Alliance was founded in 1895. It represents thirty lakh cooperative enterprises worldwide and has more than one billion cooperative members.

The conference will explore the role of cooperatives in creating a collective, peaceful, and

prosperous future for all. The theme of the conference is Cooperatives Build Prosperity for All.

4. Shri Piyush Goyal urges CREDAI to formalise its 14,000 members, says social security of labour crucial to real estate growth

urged the industry to engage the labour in formal employment, giving them the social security benefits of insurance (ESIC) and provident fund (EPFO). This will help in the number of employees getting reflected in annual reports and in national statistics. If social security, healthcare and post-retirement benefits are provided then the employees will align with the industry’s goals of enhancing their quality of work leading to better productivity and greater profits, he said.

5. Cabinet approves the PAN 2.0 Project

The PAN 2.0 Project enables technology driven transformation of Taxpayer registration services and has significant benefits including:

i. Ease of access and speedy service delivery with improved quality;

ii. Single Source of Truth and data consistency

iii. Eco-friendly processes and cost optimization; and

iv. Security and optimization of infrastructure for greater agility.

PAN 2.0 Project is an e-Governance project for re-engineering the business processes of taxpayer registration services through technology driven transformation of PAN/TAN services for enhanced digital experience of the taxpayers.

6. MSMEs can boost finances with formal registration, digital payments: RBI Deputy Governor

Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) can strengthen their financial health and credibility by  embracing formal registration, maintaining accurate financial records, and adopting digital payment systems to create a transparent financial footprint, said Swaminathan J, deputy governor at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

7. Cabinet approves continuation of the Atal Innovation Mission till 2028.

The continuation of AIM will directly contribute to creating better jobs, innovative products, and high-impact services across sectors. While building on the accomplishments of AIM 1.0, such as Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL) and Atal Incubation Centers (AIC), AIM 2.0 marks a qualitative shift in the mission’s approach. Whereas AIM 1.0 involved implementing

programs that built new innovation infrastructure to strengthen India’s then nascent ecosystem, AIM 2.0 involves piloting new initiatives designed to fill gaps in the ecosystem and scaling successes through central and state governments, industry, academia and community.

8. SEBI clears mark-to-market valuation for repo transactions to remove regulatory arbitrage

To remove a regulatory arbitrage, the market regulator has said that valuation of all mutual-fund investments in repurchase (repo) transactions shall be done on a mark-to-market basis. Until now, these investments and bank deposits were valued at cost plus accrual basis,

and only money market and debt securities of certain maturity were valued at mark-to-market basis. This created an unintended regulatory arbitrage because of the different valuation methodologies, according to a circular issued by SEBI on November 26, 2024. To right this, the circular said that valuation of all repo transactions, except for overnight

repos, will be done by agencies empanelled by the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI). These agencies do the valuation for investments in money market and debt securities.

9. Centre launches E-Daakhil across all states and union territories of India

The Department of Consumer Affairs is proud to announce the successful nationwide implementation of the E-Daakhil portal, now operational in every state and union territory of India. This milestone is marked by the recent launch of the E-Daakhil portal in Ladakh on 22nd November 2024, making E-Daakhil a truly pan-India initiative. To address the new and emerging concerns affecting consumers, the Consumer Protection Act 2019, was notified and enforced on 20th July, 2020. Going through restrictions on consumers due to

COVID-19, the e-daakhil portal was introduced as inexpensive, speedy and hassle-free mechanism for filing consumer complaints. E-Daakhil is an innovative online platform designed to streamline the consumer grievance redressal process, providing an efficient and convenient way for consumers to approach the relevant consumer forum, dispensing the need to travel and be physically present to file their grievances.

Since its inception, E-Daakhil has been a game-changer in promoting consumer rights and ensuring timely justice.

10. CCI approves the proposed acquisition of shares in Rebel Foods Private Limited by Jongsong Investments Pte. Ltd.

Competition Commission of India has approved the proposed acquisition of shares in Rebel Foods Private Limited by Jongsong Investments Pte. Ltd. The proposed combination envisages the subscription to certain compulsorily convertible preference shares and the acquisition of equity shares of Rebel Foods Private Limited (Rebel Foods) by Jongsong Investments Pte. Ltd. (Jongsong). Jongsong, an investment holding company, is an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Temasek Holdings (Private) Limited (Temasek). Temasek is

an investment company headquartered in Singapore. Temasek’s global portfolio covers a broad spectrum of industries.

11. Business Continuity for Interoperable Segments of Stock Exchanges

SEBI vide this circular has prescribed that NSE would act as an alternative trading venue for BSE and vice-a-versa. Both exchanges would prepare a joint SOP that would include plan to be invoked at the time of outage on one exchange along with flow of activity involving the

affected exchange and its alternative trading venue and roles/responsibility of each of them. Further, the SOP shall also cover changes, if any, in the systems of stock brokers / CCs to implement the measures for end investors. The aforesaid SOP should be submitted to SEBI within 60 days from the date of the Circular. The provisions of this circular would come into effect from April 01, 2025. In case of outage of a trading venue (i.e. stock exchange) during trading hours, the participants with open positions would be exposed to price risk on such

open positions, as there could be material news flow during that time. In such a case, the multi exchange set up along with interoperability among Clearing Corporations could be leveraged to provide an alternative trading venue to end investors.

12. CCI approves the acquisition of additional securities of DMI Finance Private Limited by MUFG Bank, Ltd. 

The Proposed Combination envisages acquisition of additional securities of DMI Finance Private Limited (DMI Finance/Target) by MUFG Bank, Ltd. (MUFG Bank/Acquirer), such that MUFG Bank’s shareholding will increase to 20.0% of the share capital of DMI Finance. MUFG Bank is a prominent banking institution based out of Japan with its headquarters in Marunouchi, Tokyo, Japan. MUFG Bank is wholly owned and controlled by Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc., which is a financial service and holding company incorporated in

Tokyo, Japan. In India, MUFG Bank provides: (i) corporate banking loans; (ii) deposit accounts; (iii)remittances; (iv) trade finance; and (v) bank guarantees.

Founded in 2008 by Shivashish Chatterjee and Yuvraja C. Singh, DMI Finance is a systemically important non-banking financial company and part of the DMI Group.

Case study

Jagsonpal Pharmaceuticals Ltd  - Insider trading - UPSI

Referred law : SEBI Act and  SEBI ( Prohibition of Insider trading) Regulations 2015.

Facts: Jagsonpal Pharmaceuticals made an open offer on premarket hours of Februay 22, 2022 and on opening the stock hit upper circuit and reached 52 week high. On scrutiny SEBI found that one Mr  Maneesh Kumar Jain  made some suspected tradng and on further investigation found that he traded with UPSI.

Decision: Both Manish Kumar Jain and Jagsonpal Pharmaceuticals ltd penalised by 25 lakhsmfor both in total, and asked Manish Kumar Jain to disgorge an amount 31,19,000 within 45 days of order.