Beneficial Ownership Norms

Markets regulator Sebi on Friday extended the timeline till December 31 to submit public comments on a proposal of diversifying ownership of clearing corporations, which are at present fully owned by stock exchanges. Sebi floated a consultation paper on the review of ownership and economic structure of clearing corporations (CCs) on November 22 and sought comments on the same by December 13. "Based on the representations received by Sebi from some of the entities/organisations, it has been decided to extend the timeline to submit the public comments on the consultation paper till December 31, 2024," the regulator said in a statement. In its consultation paper, Sebi proposed diversifying and widening the ownership of the clearing corporations, which are at present wholly-owned subsidiaries of stock exchanges. Sebi rules prohibit CCs from listing publicly but allow stock exchanges (their parent entities) to list, indirectly exposing CCs to market pressures. "While looking to broad b

Experts said that the SBO provisions are facing compliance issues since their introduction on account of interpretational issues

The initiative has provided training to 350,000 individuals so far, of which 240,000 (68.76%) are women, and 110,000 (31.3%) are men

The present corporate structure requires a company to be well-founded if it wishes to play long innings. By well-founded, I mean transparent, ethically managed, and profitable

Section 143 of the CGST Rules, 2017 allows sending any inputs or capital goods, without payment of tax, to a job-worker for job work and from there subsequently to another job-worker and likewise

Current threshold of 25% too high for certain categories of investors, fears the regulator

Ambiguity on whether investment falls under automatic route or requires govt approval

According to the new rules, a company can suspend control rights on its shares if the PE fund does not disclose the beneficial owner