The United States Senate has passed the &lsquo;Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act (&ldquo;Stock Act) earlier this month &ndash; a law that would explicitly prohibit employees of the federal government, and lawmakers from trading in securities while in possession of unpublished price sensitive information &ndash; popularly called &ldquo;insider trading&rdquo;.

Under-enforcement against political insiders

Business Standard

The bureaucracy manning the right-to-information machinery nationwide is said to be in a huddle after the Supreme Court ruled last week on a petition challenging the provisions in the Right to Information Act, 2005 (&ldquo;RTI Act&rdquo;) governing the constitution of information commissions.

Somasekhar Sundaresan: Retired judges are no panacea

The nation is abuzz with the debate over introduction of &quot;GAAR&quot; (general anti-avoidance rule) in tax law. We watched in shock as the government changed the rules of the game with retrospective effect after losing the tax litigation initiated by Vodafone in the highest court of the land.

Somasekhar Sundaresan: Time to implement GAAR with labour laws 

The department of financial services in the State of New York has drawn blood.&nbsp;In a rather sharply-worded publicly-issued show cause notice, the agency declared that Standard Chartered Bank had left the United States &ldquo;vulnerable to terrorists, weapons dealers, drug kingpins and corrupt regimes&rdquo; by adopting &ldquo;willful and egregious violations of law&rdquo;.&nbsp;In less than a week, the agency pocketed a sum of $340 million as a &ldquo;settlement&rdquo;.

Somasekhar Sundaresan: New York state erodes rule of law with Standard Chartered Bank

At long last the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has introduced a policy for shutting down defunct stock exchanges. The sheer number of stock exchanges in India that are not alive even while refusing to die has become a bit of a joke. In recent times, the joke has even taken cruel proportions, which underlines the importance of the policy now introduced to shut them down.

Somasekhar Sundaresan: Cruel joke of defunct stock exchanges to end

Indian business icon Rajat Gupta has been convicted of insider trading in the United States of America. Being a role model for any Indian corporate career aspirant, the criminal conviction of the first Indian to head global consulting major McKinsey has drawn the expected comparison between the legal systems in his nation of origin and his chosen nation for doing business.

Somasekhar Sundaresan: Truth about Indian insider trading law

Last week, the front page of every national paper screamed with headlines about the cost incurred on Mayawati&rsquo;s house when she was the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. The middle class conscience was shocked. The chattering classes, mostly employed with the corporate sector, were aghast. Disdain about a &ldquo;dalit&rdquo; (purportedly oppressed) leading such a luxurious life at the expense of public money was widespread.

Somasekhar Sundaresan: Mayawati home spend is in August company

Political untouchability has found its way into the regulatory system too. New guidelines notified by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (&ldquo;SEBI&rdquo;) for settlement of regulatory disputes contain a long list of market abuse defaults that shall not be settled by SEBI.

Somasekhar Sundaresan: Regulatory untouchability should be shunned

Diana Eck, an Indologist, and long-standing faculty of religious studies at Harvard University, has published a book titled 'India: A Sacred Geography'. Billed as a work of a lifetime, the book argues that it is &quot;Hinduism&quot; that keeps the hugely diverse and multi-religious India stubbornly united.

Somasekhar Sundaresan: Karmic cycle plays a role in investments too

A recent ruling by the Securities Appellate Tribunal (&ldquo;SAT&rdquo;) has sparked afresh, the debate over how the concept of insider trading is to be understood and applied. This is the first time, the SAT has explicitly interpreted the scope of Regulation 3 of the SEBI (Prohibition of Insider Trading) Regulations, 1992 (&ldquo;Insider Trading Regulations&rdquo;), which is the heart of law on insider trading in India.

SAT clears air over insider trading rule

This piece is not yet another article about the Union Budget presented last week. However, it will start by noting the finance minister&rsquo;s statement that he still hopes to raise as much as Rs 30,000 crores by disinvesting government stake in state-owned companies &ndash; a bit lower than the Rs 40,000 crores targeted last year, but yet, sizeable.

Foreign direct investment too can bring NGO-type activism 

The government of India is asking Parliament to approve a retrospective amendment to the income-tax laws. Its aim is to pass law that would negate a comprehensive defeat of the government's stance against Vodafone Plc. in the Supreme Court.

Is Supreme Court really the last word?

The Indian tax and corporate advisory ecosystem is in a flurry of intense activity. The Supreme Court has decisively and emphatically rejected the claim of the income-tax department that a transfer of a foreign holding company indirectly holding Indian shares is necessarily subject to taxation as if it were a transfer of Indian shares (in the Vodafone litigation). Every tax advisory firm on the street is busy arranging webinars and conference calls to showcase expertise in analyzing the decision of the Supreme Court.

Somasekhar Sundaresan