India is yet to hit its stride in dealing with Significant Beneficial Owner (SBO) rules introduced by the Companies (Amendment) Act, 2017. The SBO rules have its origin in the recommendations made by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to its member countries, to make suitable changes in the national legislation to find out individuals, who ultimately own significant beneficial shareholding in the reporting company. There remains a large degree of uncertainty and confusion around…

On June 7th, 2018, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had introduced two new forms (namely Single Master Form and Entity Master Form) vide a circular[1] (RBI Circular), with the aim of simplifying reporting under the Foreign Exchange and Management Act, 1999 (FEMA). Our earlier blog post contained details of the two forms and our in-depth analysis of the same. On June 27th, 2018, RBI released a User Manual for Entity Master – FIRMS[2] (User…

In alignment with the Indian Government’s continuing efforts to bolster foreign investment and ease of doing business in India, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued two important circulars in June 2018 with the aim of simplifying reporting under the Foreign Exchange and Management Act, 1999 (FEMA). The circulars are as follows: Currently all foreign investment transactions are reported in a complicated, disintegrated manner across various platforms/modes. The Foreign Exchange Management (Transfer or Issue…