Introduction

Edition 6/20-21

Week – August 24^th to 28^th

We welcome you to our weekly newsletter for this week!

The ‘Swift e-Bulletin’ - weekly newsletter, covers all regulatory updates and critical judgements passed during the week. We hope that you liked our previous editions and found it to be of great value in its content. We want this newsletter to be valuable for you so, please share your feedback and suggestions to help us improve.

In the wake of COVID-19, we all are witnessing many relaxations, exemptions and amendments to the various legislations by regulatory authorities to ease out the operations during this time of crisis.

Further, various regulatory authorities have been proactive in bringing significant regulatory changes in recent challenging times. This newsletter covers various circulars/notifications issued by certain regulatory authorities such as the Reserve Bank of India (“RBI”), the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (“MCA”), the Securities and Exchange Board of India (“SEBI”), and critical judgements and orders passed by National Company Law Tribunal (“NCLT”), National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (“NCLAT”), SEBI, RBI, Supreme Court and High Court. With a constant endeavor to cover all regulatory updates and judgements/orders at one place, we have prepared a comprehensive summary for quick reference of such updates and Judgements orders issued during the week of August 24, 2020 to August 28, 2020.

Thank you,

Swift Team

Table of Contents

REGULATORY UPDATES

MCA UPDATES

1. MCA amends the Companies (Corporate Social Responsibility Policy) Rules, 2014 of the Companies Act, 2013 vide Gazette notification dated August 24, 2020 

• MCA vide Notification dated August 24, 2020 has widened the scope of Corporate Social Responsibility activities by amending item (ix) of the Schedule VII of the Companies Act 2013 to include more entities like Ministry of AYUSH etc., engaged in research and development for new vaccine, drugs or medical devices, to whom contribution shall be treated as Contribution for Corporate Social Responsibility (“CSR” Activities as required under Section 135 of Companies Act, 2013.
• In the Companies (Corporate Social Responsibility Policy) Rules, 2014 (hereinafter referred to as the said rules), in rule 2, in sub-rule (1), in clause (e), the following proviso shall be inserted, namely

“Provided that any company engaged in research and development activity of new vaccine, drugs and medical devices in their normal course of business may undertake research and development activity of new vaccine, drugs and medical devices related to COVID-19 for financial years 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23 subject to the conditions that-

1. such research and development activities shall be carried out in collaboration with any of the institutes or organizations mentioned in item (ix) of Schedule VII to the Act.
2. details of such activity shall be disclosed separately in the Annual Report on CSR included in the Board’s Report.

• There have also been some amendments in terms of omissions in Rule 4 and Rule 6 of the above-mentioned rules.

To read the notification in detail, please click here.

2. MCA amends Schedule VII of the Companies Act, 2013 vide Gazette Notification dated August 24, 2020

• Schedule VII relates to Activities which have to be included by companies in their Corporate Social Responsibility Policies (Section 135 of Companies Act, 2013). MCA amended the schedule to include the following activities:

In the said Schedule, for item (ix) and the entries thereto, the following item and entries shall be substituted, namely: -

“(ix) (a) Contribution to incubators or research and development projects in the field of science, technology, engineering and medicine, funded by the Central Government or State Government or Public Sector Undertaking or any agency of the Central Government or State Government; and

(b) Contributions to public funded Universities; Indian Institute of Technology (IITs); National Laboratories and autonomous bodies established under Department of Atomic Energy (DAE); Department of Biotechnology (DBT); Department of Science and Technology (DST); Department of Pharmaceuticals; Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH); Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and other bodies, namely Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO); Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR); Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), engaged in conducting research in science, technology, engineering and medicine aimed at promoting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”.

To read the notification in detail, please click here.