On 24 July, a briefing from Osborne Clarke said that the Modi government continues its reform of India’s financial and corporate laws as it looks to fight white-collar crime and improve business conditions in the world’s fifth-largest economy. A new Act has decriminalised 16 corporate offences involving procedural and technical lapses – so that company directors and officers are no longer at risk of imprisonment in respect of the decriminalised provisions, and any penalties imposed in respect of these defaults are of a civil, and not criminal, nature – and a new draft Act decriminalises an additional set of offences. The government has also recently clarified the protocol for prosecuting independent directors and non-executive directors (who are not promoters or key managerial personnel). The Finance Act 2019 had introduced amendments to the Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2002 to tighten gaps and addressing ambiguities in the AML law – widening the scope of “proceeds of crime” to include properties and assets created, derived, or obtained through any criminal activity related to the scheduled offence (even where not under the PMLA itself), and clarifying the continuing nature of the money laundering offence (that is, commission of the offence will run for as long as the offender is enjoying the proceeds of crime).
