The School for Corporate Governance (SCG) of the National Institute of Securities Markets (NISM) along with National Stock Exchange of India Ltd (NSE) and Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) had organized a Conference on Corporate Governance for Listed Companies on April 26, 2019 at Hyderabad. NSE Ltd had also provided the sponsorship for the programme.

Major amendments were introduced by SEBI to the SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015 and some of the important changes relating to Independent Directors, Secretarial Audit, etc., are effective from April 1, 2019. These changes were made upon the recommendations of SEBI Committee on Corporate Governance (Uday Kotak Committee). The Conference was aimed at sensitizing the Chief Executive Officers, Managing Directors, Independent Directors, Company Secretaries and other stakeholders about complying with these changes.

Mr.Radha Krishna Sista, Chairman, ICSI-Hyderabad Chapter and Mr.R.Venkata Ramana, Treasurer, ICSI-SIRC, welcomed the dignitaries and requested the participants to make use of the deliberations in the Conference, as it will provide clarity on many of the practical aspects of the Regulations.

Dr. V.R.Narasimhan, Dean, NISM, while underscoring the theme of the Conference, requested the listed companies to come forward and comply in true spirit. In the absence of it, Dr Narasimhan stated that the Regulator would be constrained to paint all the companies with the same brush.

Mr.Hemant Reddy, Whole Time Director, Amines Ltd, shared his experience as a Board of Director in complying with regulatory changes and highlighted the difficulties being faced by companies located in Tier II and III cities in getting updated about these changes.

Mr.Ahlad Rao, Practising Company Secretary, spoke about the cultural issues and skill-gaps, while adapting to the new changes. He also thanked the Regulator for adopting a consultative approach in policy making and requested the stakeholders to explore the possibility of a setting up a common portal where all the reports related to listed companies could be filed.

Mr. Amarjeet Singh, Executive Director, SEBI, in his Keynote Address, underlined the importance of good governance in companies. In his detailed presentation, Mr.Amarjeet Singh, gave a holistic view of the role and responsibilities of different stakeholders viz. auditors, proxy advisors, credit rating agencies, etc., in contributing to good governance.

Mr. Kautuk Upadhyay, Chief Manager, National Stock Exchange of India Ltd, provided the Stock Exchange perspective of the recent changes. He also made a detailed presentation on issues relating to the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for compliance by listed entities.

Shri Pradeep Ramakrishnan, General Manager, SEBI, deliberated with the participants about the revised Secretarial Standards and also correlated the same with the changes in SEBI LODR. He also addressed the queries raised by the participants.

Mr. M.Krishnamoorthy, Member of Faculty, NISM, spoke about Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) aspects of investment. He requested the participants to take note of the institutional investors’ appetite for companies exhibiting good governance at global and national level