SEBI Board meeting seeks to relax mandate for Separation of role of Chairperson and MD/CEO

The SEBI Board meeting on February 15, 2021 has suggested following amendments to SEBI Regulations. SEBI (LODR) were amended in May 2018 mandating, with effect from April 1, 2020, top 500 listed entities to ensure that the Chairperson of the board shall–

  1. Be a non-executive director;
  2. Not be related to the Managing Director or the Chief Executive Officer as per the definition of the term “relative” defined under the Companies Act, 2013

Considering rather unsatisfactory level of compliance achieved so far, with respect to this corporate governance reform, various representations received,constraints posed by the prevailing pandemic situation and with a view to enabling the companies to plan for a smoother transition, as a way forward, SEBI Board has decided that this provision may not be retained as a mandatory requirement and instead be made applicable to the listed entities on a “voluntary basis”.

The Board approved amendment to SEBI (Alternative Investment Funds) Regulations, 2012, providing flexibility to Category III Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) to calculate the investment concentration norm based either on investable funds or net asset value of the fund while investing in listed equity of investee company.

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