Decoding “large number” in case of Group Governance Policy under LODR
By CS Megha Saraf (megha@vinodkothari.com)
Introduction
The Securities Exchange Board of India (“SEBI”) formulated a Corporate Governance Committee (“CG Committee/ Committee”) under the Chairmanship of Shri Uday Kotak to amend/insert new provisions in the existing SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015 (“Listing Regulations”). With a vision to enhance the standards of corporate governance of listed entities, several recommendations were made by the CG Committee in its Report dated October 2017 which were kept open for public comments/ suggestions. Out of the several recommendations made by the Committee, many of them were accepted with or without modifications and necessary amendments were brought in the Listing Regulations vide SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) (Amendment) Regulations, 2018 dated 9th May, 2018 enforcing them in tranches.
However, certain recommendations though accepted, were left with SEBI for implementation by way of circulars from time to time. In view of this, SEBI Circular SEBI/HO/CFD/CMD/CIR/P/2018/79 dated 10th May, 2018 (“Circular”) was issued requiring the listed entities having subsidiaries to adopt a Group Governance Policy in order to enhance the standards of corporate governance at a group level. Group Governance Policy is required when there is a “large number” of subsidiaries in a group.
This article seeks to lay down rules/guidance as to how to decipher the meaning of the “large number” in context of a group. In essence, whether there may be numerical number, which may, in absolute terms, be regarded as large, or whether the determination of large number is relative, and will depend on various factors. If so, what are those factors? In short, this article gets into the unclear question of how to determine whether a particular group has a large number of subsidiaries.