As regulators and the government seek to provide greater safeguards for foreign and domestic investors, the stock exchanges will soon put in place a new framework to provide guidance to listed companies on making right disclosures, BSE CEO Ashishkumar Chauhan said.
This will enable the companies understand beforehand what kinds of disclosures they are required to make for investors to take informed decisions and help remove ambiguities and avoid unnecessary trouble for companies at a later stage, Chauhan said.
"One thing I would like to assure the international investors is that the Indian regulatory framework today is at the forefront of modern thinking about investor protection and investor rights," the BSE CEO told PTI in an interview here.
Chauhan, who was here to participate in various business events planned in the backdrop of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's five-day visit to the US, also said that the capital markets regulator Sebi, the Ministry of Finance and the Corporate Affairs Ministry have strived in the last six months or so to ensure that investors' rights are protected in India.
"Sebi has also instructed the exchanges to ensure that the information provided by the listed companies fulfils the regulatory compliance aspect. If exchanges feel that the information is not sufficient, they can ask additional questions from the companies.
"We (exchanges) are now working on a new framework to give them a guidance on what is price sensitive information or material details that the listed companies are required to share with the investors through the exchange platform and what could be the additional information.
"This will ensure that there is no ambiguity in the minds of the companies' management and their company secretaries that these are the information and other details that they should provide," Chauhan said.
"Exchanges have been empowered a lot in recent times in their role as front-line regulators," he said.
When asked how to assure the investors about better regulations, while also ensuring that the companies do not feel overburdened by new regulations, Chauhan said, "There is always a very thin line between over-regulations and the right regulations. However, the new framework is such that if you are able to take care of minority shareholders' interest, more and more investors are going to come in.
"It's not only foreign investors, but Indian investors would also be more willing to come in if their rights are taken care of. There is a huge scope for expanding the domestic investment horizon in India itself," he said.
