Page 61 - ELT_2nd_15th April 2020_Vol 372_Part

2020 ] TIT-BITS A77

ance fee Reduced bank charges for digital trade transactions for all
trade finance consumers.
Corporate Affairs
(1) No additional fees shall be charged for late filing during a moratori-
um period from 1st April to 30th September 2020, in respect of any
document, return, statement, etc., required to be filed in the MCA-21
Registry, irrespective of its due date, which will not only reduce the
compliance burden, including financial burden of companies/LLPs at
large, but also enable long-standing non-compliant companies/LLPs
to make a ‘fresh start’;
(2) The mandatory requirement of holding meetings of the Board of the
companies within prescribed interval provided in the Companies Act
(120 days), 2013, shall be extended by a period of 60 days till next two
quarters, i.e., till 30th September;
(3) Applicability of Companies (Auditor’s Report) Order, 2020 shall be
made applicable from the financial year 2020-2021 instead of from
2019-2020 notified earlier. This will significantly ease the burden on
companies & their auditors for the year 2019-20.
(4) As per Schedule 4 to the Companies Act, 2013, Independent Directors
are required to hold at least one meeting without the attendance of
Non-independent directors and members of management. For the
year 2019-20, if the IDs of a company have not been able to hold even
one meeting, the same shall not be viewed as a violation.
(5) Requirement to create a Deposit reserve of 20% of deposits maturing
during the financial year 2020-21 before 30th April 2020 shall be al-
lowed to be complied with till 30th June 2020.
(6) Requirement to invest 15% of debentures maturing during a particu-
lar year in specified instruments before 30th April 2020, may be done
so before 30th June 2020.
(7) Newly incorporated companies are required to file a declaration for
Commencement of Business within 6 months of incorporation. An
additional time of 6 more months shall be allowed.
(8) Non-compliance of minimum residency in India for a period of at
least 182 days by at least one director of every company, under Sec-
tion 149 of the Companies Act, shall not be treated as a violation.
(9) Due to the emerging financial distress faced by most companies on
account of the large-scale economic distress caused by COVID 19, it
has been decided to raise the threshold of default under Section 4 of
the IBC 2016 to ` 1 crore (from the existing threshold of ` 1 lakh). This
will by and large prevent triggering of insolvency proceedings
against MSMEs. If the current situation continues beyond 30th of
April 2020, we may consider suspending Sections 7, 9 and 10 of the
IBC 2016 for a period of 6 months so as to stop companies at large
from being forced into insolvency proceedings in such force majeure
causes of default.
(10) Detailed notifications/circulars in this regard shall be issued by the
Ministry of Corporate Affairs separately.

EXCISE LAW TIMES  15th April 2020  77