The Securities and Exchange Board of India is looking into the issue of companies holding board meeting on results and other market-sensitive information during trading hours, Sebi chairman D R Mehta said here yesterday.
Mehta made this remark while replying to a point raised by Kamal Parekh, former president of the Calcutta Stock Exchange, at a seminar organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce.
Speaking to Business Standard, Mehta said the regulator would examine the issue in the context of best practices on how market-sensitive information should be treated. Currently, corporate results cannot be announced during trading hours. "Now, it is assumed the boards will maintain that level of secrecy till trading time is over. But we will see what more is to be done," he added.
Sebi is also examining the possibility of making declaration of end-use of funds mandatory in every quarter instead of every year at present.
On the regulator's major initiatives on the corporate governance front, Mehta said the Sebi guidelines on this would be implemented through the corporates' listing agreement with the bourses.
"We had sent the recommendations to Sir Adrian Cadbury and received a positive response. In fact, there was an advantage in our coming in later, since we could incorporate work done by the Cadbury committee and the OECD in this regard," Mehta said.
The incentive for good corporate governance was higher market capitalisation and renewed investor confidence in the company, he said, adding that ICAI was working on the issues of consolidation of accounts, segmentation, related-party transactions and deferred payment tax liabilities. The basic recommendations on these issues would made by end-2000, the Sebi chairman said. Mehta also said the circuit-filter mechanism was working well, and the feedback was positive.
