India: Corporate Governance

The real question is not simply what happens to the shareholders’ agreement on the day of listing, but how an IPO-bound company should handle the rights negotiated with founders and investors throughout its journey.

For listed companies, preparing the Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report (BRSR) involves collecting data from multiple departments, consolidating performance indicators and ensuring that disclosures are complete, consistent and finalized within the reporting timeline. Companies must ensure that each disclosure is supported by reliable data, documented calculation methodologies and adequate records, with a clear basis for how the reported figures have been derived and validated. These requirements become particularly relevant as companies prepare for BRSR Core assessment or assurance.

Every business wants to avoid legal risks, reduce manual work and stay prepared for changing regulations. Using regulatory compliance management software helps organizations identify issues early, improve transparency and strengthen governance without relying only on spreadsheets or manual reviews.

The proposal to introduce an Appellate Arbitral Tribunal (AAT) into India’s arbitration architecture, most prominently reflected in the Draft Arbitration & Conciliation (Amendment) Bill, 2024, has rekindled debate over the proper balance between party autonomy, finality, institutional quality, and judicial supervision. Proponents portray an AAT as an institutional innovation that would enhance the quality of awards, promote consistency, and reduce the burden on courts. Critics warn that an appellate layer risks destroying arbitration’s comparative advantage by permitting merits review, increasing costs and delay, and departing from the international norm of limited judicial interference.

India's investment landscape is evolving as capital markets deepen and investors shift their focus from pure growth to governance, founder quality, and comprehensive due diligence. Drawing on insights from a recent seminar hosted by Withers KhattarWong and Khaitan Legal Associates, this analysis explores how investors are navigating opportunities in India's maturing market while managing founder dynamics, compliance challenges, and exit strategies.

India's Global Capability Centre (GCC) story has changed a great deal in recent years. What began as a way to move routine back-office and support work to India has grown into something far more strategic. GCCs today work on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, engineering, product development, research and development, finance and analytics and increasingly sit at the heart of their parent companies' global operations.

Every company on the road to a public listing is expected to be governed as though it were already a listed entity, well before its shares ever trade. Schedule VI Part A of the SEBI (Issue of Capital and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2018 (“ICDR Regulations”) requires the offer document to carry a statement confirming that the issuer has complied with the board composition and committee requirements prescribed under the SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015 (“LODR Regulations”), months before those regulations have any legal application to such company.

India's Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025 introduce a novel regulatory framework for Consent Managers—registered intermediaries that enable Data Principals to give, manage, review, or withdraw consent across multiple Data Fiduciaries through a single interoperable platform. With a twelve-month implementation runway and stringent eligibility criteria including capital adequacy...

India's corporate landscape is dominated by family-controlled businesses, which constitute approximately 80% of all enterprises and contribute about 79% to the national GDP.