Sebi rationalises time period for filing settlement applications to 60 days

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.