Markets regulator Sebi on Tuesday in a board meeting took number of decisions. Sebi approved a slew of amendments to various regulations. Here are key decisions taken:-

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-Markets regulator Sebi clears changes to regulations pertaining to issue of capital and disclosure requirements. 

-Sebi approves amendments to regulations governing Alternate Investment Funds, Foreign Portfolio Investors.

-Sebi board tightens rules for IPO proceed utilisation; extends anchor investors lock-in period to 90 days.

-Sebi rationalises time period for filing settlement applications by entities to 60 days from date of receiving show-cause notice. 

-Sebi caps amount a majority investor can sell in share sale.

Tightening rules for utilisation of IPO proceeds

-Sebi on Tuesday approved a slew of amendments to various regulations, including tightening rules for the utilisation of IPO proceeds.

-Changes have been cleared for regulations governing foreign portfolio investors, Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs), mutual funds, settlement proceedings, among others.

Appointment or re-appointment

-The watchdog has also decided to introduce provisions relating to appointment or re-appointment of persons who fail to get elected as directors, including as Whole Time Directors or Managing Directors or Managers, at the general meeting of a listed entity.

-"Appointment or a re-appointment of any person, including as a Managing Director or a Whole Time Director or a Manager, who was earlier rejected by the shareholders at a general meeting, shall be done only with the prior approval of the shareholders," Sebi said in a release. 

Sebi to rationalise settlement proceeding norms

-Also, the time period for filing settlement applications by entities will be 60 days from the date of receipt of the show-cause notice or a supplementary notice, whichever is earlier, according to Sebi.

-The decision, taken at the board meeting of Sebi on Tuesday, is aimed at rationalising norms on settlement proceedings.

-In this regard, changes will be made to the settlement proceedings regulations, which had come into force from January 1, 2019.

-"Time period for filing a settlement application rationalised to 60 days from the date of receipt of the show-cause notice or a supplementary notice, whichever is later," the regulator said in a release.

-Further, the time period for submission of revised settlement terms form, after the Internal Committee (IC), will be rationalised to 15 days. This will be from the date of the IC meeting.

-The time period for remittance of the settlement amount and compliance with all the settlement terms will be rationalised. All payments under the settlement regulations will be accepted only through a dedicated payment gateway.

-Separate guidelines dealing with the procedure to be adopted for arriving at suitable terms pursuant to the filing of a compounding application will be issued.

-The amendments would also provide clarifications of certain provisions relating to the condition precedent for settlement, non-monetary terms, provisions relating to irregularity in the procedure, settlement scheme and legal costs, in the settlement process.

-"In order to bring uniformity in the settlement regulations, certain substitutions or insertions or omissions or consequential amendments" will also be carried out, the release said.

-Amendments have also been approved to regulations governing Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs).

-This will enable Sebi to "generate unique registration numbers of FPIs on receiving the basic details of the applicants seeking FPI registration from either of Sebi-registered depositories," the release said.

-According to Sebi, changes will be made to regulations on listing obligations and disclosure requirements for issuance of securities in dematerialised form in case of investor requests for the issue of duplicate shares.

- "This move will improve the ease, convenience and safety of transactions for investors," it added.

Sebi to strengthen MF norms; winding up of schemes only after majority unitholders' consent

- In a move aimed to further safeguard the interest of mutual fund investors, Sebi on Tuesday decided to mandate trustees of mutual funds to obtain the consent of unitholders when the majority of trustees decide to wind up a scheme.

-As part of amending the mutual fund regulations, the watchdog will make it mandatory for the funds to follow Indian Accounting Standards (Ind AS) from 2023-24 financial year onwards.

-Mutual fund trustees will be required to obtain the consent of the unitholders when the majority of the trustees decide to wind up a scheme or prematurely redeem the units of a close-ended scheme, Sebi said in a release.

-"The trustees will have to obtain consent of the unitholders by simple majority of the unitholders present and voting on the basis of one vote per unit held and publish the results of voting within 45 days of the publication of notice of circumstances leading to winding up," it said.

-In case the trustees fail to obtain the consent, Sebi said the scheme should be open for business activities from the second business day after publication of results of voting.

-Apart from the Ind AS requirements, Sebi has decided to amend the norms with respect to accounting-related regulatory provisions to remove redundant provisions and to bring more clarity.

-Meanwhile, to enhance the role of KYC Registration Agencies (KRAs), the regulator has decided to make them responsible to carry out independent validation of the KYC records uploaded onto their system by the Registered Intermediary (RI).

-Besides, such agencies will have to maintain an audit trail of the upload/modification/download with respect to KYC records of clients.

-"It has also been prescribed that the systems of the RIs and KRAs should be integrated to facilitate seamless movement of KYC documents to and from RIs to KRAs," the release said. 

(With PTI inputs)