Sebi amends listing agreement

 Provisions for monitoring of utilisation of issue proceeds strengthened

 Electronic filing through Corporate Filing and Dissemination System mandated for 100 companies

 Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has amended Equity Listing Agreement vide circular dated December 27, 2007. The highlights of the amendments are:

 1. Monitoring of utilisation of Issue Proceeds :

 The monitoring report on utilisation of issue proceeds filed by the monitoring agency, if appointed at the time of issue, shall be placed before the Audit Committee of the company. The Audit committee shall review such reports as well as the statement indicating material deviations in the utilisation of issue proceeds and make appropriate recommendations to the Board of the company. Such material deviations shall be informed to the stock exchange and simultaneously, material deviations / adverse comments of the Audit committee / monitoring agency shall be made public through advertisement in newspapers.

 2. Electronic filing through Corporate Filing and Dissemination System (CFDS), viz., www.corpfiling.co.in :

 In view of a new portal, viz., CFDS put in place jointly by BSE and NSE (Participating Stock Exchanges) at the URL www.corpfiling.co.in,  SEBI has decided to mandate filing through CFDS. CFDS offers a XBRL enabled common platform for listed companies to file such information, statements and reports as may be specified by the Participating Stock Exchanges in this regard and also a common place for investors to view information related to listed companies. Listed companies shall, in a phased manner, be required to file information with the stock exchange only through CFDS. In the first phase, 100 companies shortlisted by the Participating Stock Exchanges are mandated to make their submissions through CFDS from the period starting from January 1, 2008. Over period, other modes of sending public information to stock exchanges for compliance with clauses of Equity Listing Agreement shall be dispensed with, including filing through EDIFAR. Companies filing through CFDS are not required to make filing through EDIFAR.

 Click here to see full text of the circular.