Saturday, 29 July 2023

Trade Update - July 23

 

§  Sebi has introduced phased manner of dematerialisation of units of AIF 

 

§  EPF Interest Rate @8.15 % declared by Govt. of India.

 

§  DGFT extends the deadline for filing application under EPCG and Advance License Amnesty scheme to December 31, 2023 subject to payment of duties and interest by March 31, 2024. The extension was expected given some glitches being faced by applicant on DGFT portal. Thereafter, DGFT created a separate portal for creating amnesty application and allowed manual filing of application nerated from such portal. However, applicants are facing issues on that portal too like delay in receiving OTP etc.  

 

§  Instruction No. 19/2023-Customs dated July 04, 2023. The Instruction provides relief to importers importing goods from Japan under India-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).

 

§  Ministry of labour issued a new circular clarifying that new companies have to login before completion of six months to extend the dormant status under ESIC Act, else the compliances shall become applicable. This is in view of recent notices to various companies for non compliances under ESIC Act.

 

§  SEZ Instruction No. 113 dated July 13, 2023 : SEZ units will not be required to submit physical copies of invoices and SOFTEX.  Any documents (including invoices) required from the SEZ units for verification purposes, can be obtained electronically from the SEZ Unit.  In exceptional cases, where a detailed verification is required to be carried out, physical copies of documents can be insisted upon, on a case to case basis.

 

§  Change of Mediation Bill approved by Cabinet ahead

 

1. Key amendments to the Mediation Bill, 2021 -- including the removal of a provision that made pre-litigation mediation mandatory before parties could file any suit or proceedings in court, regardless of the existence of a mediation agreement between them -- were cleared by the Union Cabinet on Wednesday, according to reliable sources.

2. The mediation bill, moved by the Union ministry of law and justice, seeks to institutionalise mediation for civil and commercial disputes and establish a Mediation Council of India (MCI).

3. The amended bill makes pre-litigation voluntary, leaving parties with the choice to participate in a pre-litigation mediation process instead of litigating, the people said.

     

§  Apparently with a view to make disclosure more stringent and widen the scope of disclosures, SEBI introduced two new clauses pertaining to regulatory actions, as clause 19 and 20, in Schedule III.A.A, as a part of SEBI (Listing Regulations and Disclosure Requirements) (Second Amendment) Regulations, 2023, with effect from July 14, 2023.
Newly inserted clauses 19 and 20 in Para A Part A of Schedule III cover the regulatory and similar actions which are required to be disclosed irrespective of the materiality thresholds prescribed. There is a huge confusion as to what sort of regulatory actions are to be covered in item 19 and 20. Trivial fines and penalties have begun coming up on stock exchange reporting.  Hence, it is very important to ascertain the type of regulatory actions that fall within the ambit of either of these two clauses

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