Page 15 - Banking Finance April 2018

ROUNDUP

INDUSTRY

NEWS
NEWS
NEWS
NEWS
NEWS

Aadhaar-like ID no for Bill to promote institutional arbitration

businesses in the works The Central government is planning to amend the law to encourage the estab-
lishment of accredited institutional arbitrators who
The government mooted the idea of will help resolve corporate disputes. Although some
an 'Aadhaar institutional arbitrators now exist in India, the stan-
for business' dard practice is for the parties involved in the dis-
with an aim to pute to appoint individual arbitrators for individual
further crack- cases with court permission.
down on shell One objective behind the proposed amendment is to turn India into an interna-
companies and ensure easier trace- tional arbitration hub. Currently, arbitration of disputes involving Indian com-
ability of public money.
panies is often held in places like Singapore and London. The Arbitration and
"The government will evolve a Conciliation (Amendment) Bill, 2018, is expected to be introduced in the ongo-
scheme to assign every individual ing budget session of Parliament.
enterprise in India a unique ID," fi- It envisages, among other things, an Arbitration Council of India that will regu-
nance minister Arun Jaitley said, as late the institutional arbitrators and award them grading and accreditation on
he outlined measures for increasing the basis of their calibre, credibility and quality of services. Union law minister
the ease of doing business in India.
Ravi Shankar Prasad said the council would be headed by a former Supreme
A government official said the new Court judge or a retired high court chief justice.
scheme could be a buildup of the Under the scenario envisaged in the bill, various (private) institutions will come
ministry's existing Udyog Aadhaar up, equipped with their own panels of arbitrators, made up of retired judges
project for micro, small and medium and senior lawyers. Some 36 such institutional arbitrators already exist in major
enterprises. The MSME ministry Indian cities such as Delhi, Calcutta, Chennai and Mumbai. The idea is to en-
launched the Udyog Aadhaar scheme courage the establishment of more such bodies, Prasad said.
in September 2015 and, according to
a report, more than 4.1 million enter- New gold policy soon
prises across the country have ob- The Centre is going to announce a new gold policy soon to institutionalise and
tained the Udyog Aadhaar number. bring in more transparency in the trade. It also is in the process of setting up
A unique ID for businesses "will provide policy frame work for launching spot gold exchange and a Gold Board that would
increased traceability to ensure that eventually be considered to regulate the spot exchange.
no one can scam one company and Speaking at the fifth India International Bullion Summit, Manoj Dwivedi, Joint
move to another," said Jaijit Secretary, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, said the process of collecting
Bhattacharya, head, economic, regu- suggestions from the industry players is almost done and NITI-Aayog is in the
latory and policy advisory, KPMG India. process of releasing a the gold policy by March-end or early April.

BANKING FINANCE | APRIL | 2018 | 15