Corporate Advisory Services
Corporate advisory is the work that happens before a form is filed — deciding whether a transaction is permissible, how it should be structured, what approvals it needs, and what it will trigger downstream. Get it right and the filing is a formality. Get it wrong and you spend the next two years compounding a fixable problem.
Akash & Co. advises Indian and foreign-owned companies on the Companies Act 2013, SEBI regulations, FEMA and the FDI policy. We give a view — in writing, with the reasoning and the risk stated plainly — rather than a list of possibilities for you to choose between.
What we advise on
Directors' duties and disqualifications, board and general meeting process under Secretarial Standards SS-1 and SS-2, related party transactions, loans to directors and inter-corporate loans, deposits, charges, and managerial remuneration.
Rights issues, private placements, preferential allotments, bonus issues, sweat equity, buy-backs, reduction of capital, conversion of loans into equity, and the drafting that goes with each.
Scheme design, trust versus direct route, valuation coordination, shareholder approvals, grant and exercise administration.
Sector route and cap analysis, pricing guidelines, downstream investment rules, FC-GPR and FC-TRS reporting on the FIRMS portal, the annual FLA return, and compounding applications where a default has already happened.
ODI structuring for Indian companies investing abroad, and the annual reporting that follows.
LODR obligations, insider trading codes and structured digital databases, SAST disclosures, buy-back and delisting regulations, and ICDR issues for companies approaching the market.
Board charters, committee constitution and terms of reference, delegation of authority, and policy sets (RPT, insider trading, whistle-blower, CSR, POSH, risk management, nomination and remuneration).
Shareholders' agreements and their translation into articles of association, exit and drag-along mechanics, deadlock provisions, and family or promoter settlements.
Applications, condonations, compounding and adjudication matters.
Who this is for
Boards and promoters of private and public companies; India subsidiaries of foreign groups; listed companies and their company secretaries; investors and funds needing a regulatory view before they commit.
The FAQs
Broadly, the options are to comply and regularise, to seek compounding or adjudication of the penalty, or to contest the notice where the underlying position is defensible. Which of these makes sense depends on the section involved, whether the default is continuing, and whether it is one you can cure before the hearing. The first step is always to establish the exact default and its period, because notices are frequently drafted more widely than the facts support.
It depends on the sector and on the investor. A large number of sectors permit foreign investment under the automatic route with no prior approval, subject only to pricing guidelines and post-facto reporting to the RBI. Others sit under the government route or carry caps and conditions, and investors from certain countries require prior approval regardless of sector. We check the position on the current FDI policy before the investment is structured — a route error is expensive and awkward to unwind.
The Companies Act restricts loans, guarantees and security given to directors and to persons in whom directors are interested, with a set of exemptions and conditions — some available to private companies meeting prescribed criteria. Because the section is one of the more frequently breached in closely held companies, and the consequences fall on the company and the officers personally, this is worth a written opinion on your specific facts rather than a general answer.
