October 2020 Through General Circular  No. 36/2020 dated October 20, 2020, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (“MCA”) has exempted directors and designated partners from complying with the minimum residency requirement of 182 days for Financial Year (“FY”) 2020-21. Background: As per section 149(3) of the Companies Act, 2013 (“CA 2013”), every company needs to have at...

September 2020 Given the COVID-19 crisis, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (“MCA”) has been taking many initiatives to support Corporate India including initiatives pertaining to Corporate Social Responsibility (“CSR”). Recently, the MCA expanded the scope of CSR activities by amending item (ix) of Schedule VII and introducing the Companies (CSR Policy) Amendment Rules, 2020. Background: As...

September 2020 On September 8, 2020, the Registrar of Companies (“ROC”) granted an automatic extension of 3 months for holding Annual General Meeting (“AGM”) for Financial Year (“FY”) 2019-20. This comes as a major relief for companies during this pandemic. What is AGM extension: As per section 96 of the Companies Act, 2013, every company is...

August 2020 With respect to the Annual General Meetings (“AGMs”), the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (“MCA”) came up with a general circular 18/2020 providing the companies, whose Financial Year (“FY”) ended on December 31, 2019, an extension of 3 months to convene an AGM. Subsequently, the MCA issued a General Circular 20/2020 on May 5,...