India: Corporate/Commercial Law

India's Ministry of Home Affairs has introduced sweeping amendments to the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act framework through the 2026 Amendment Rules, fundamentally transforming how NGOs and not-for-profits receive and utilize foreign funding. These changes establish purpose-specific and geography-specific registration requirements, enhanced disclosure obligations including ultimate donor identification, and objective benchmarks for organizational activity. Will these reforms strengthen accountability

India is perhaps one of the first countries in the world to make a robust and mandatory Corporate Social Responsibility (“CSR”) initiative which requires the corporations to contribute a portion of their earnings...

Indian trust law was conceived in a very different economic era. Public charitable trusts were traditionally viewed as custodians of philanthropic intent and were institutions established to preserve charitable objects, administer donations and safeguard public beneficiaries.

Argus Partners maintains offices in three major Indian cities: Mumbai, New Delhi, and Bengaluru. The firm provides legal services while adhering to Bar Council of India regulations that prohibit solicitation and advertising, requiring visitors to acknowledge specific disclaimers before accessing information.

Mergers and acquisitions have become a defining instrument of corporate expansion, enabling enterprises to enter new markets, enhance technological capabilities, scale rapidly and consolidate sectoral influence. Behind every successful M&A lies a foundation of investigative scrutiny known as due diligence, which determines whether an acquisition is financially sound or legally fatal. In principle, due diligence serves as a comprehensive diagnostic mechanism through which the acquirer evaluates the financial, regulatory, legal, commercial and operational standing of the target company.

In a significant ruling on the ever-evolving contours of arbitration law, the Supreme Court in KKH Finvest Pvt. Ltd. v. Ashiesh Shukla (Civil Appeal arising out of SLP (C) No. 4222 of 2025, decided on 5th August, 2026) revisited the circumstances in which a non-signatory can be bound by an arbitration agreement.

India's Reserve Bank has fundamentally restructured how cross-border guarantees are regulated under FEMA, shifting from transaction-specific permissions to a principles-based framework that tracks guarantees throughout their entire lifecycle.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) issued a consultation paper on 23 July 2026 (Consultation Paper). The Consultation Paper proposes a comprehensive review of the SEBI (Portfolio Managers) Regulations, 2020 (PMS Regulations).

The Court held that mere subsistence of the underlying contract in cases where the debt had already matured would not lend a new lease of life to such debts in case they already stood time-barred.

Over the years, Securities and Exchange Board of India (“SEBI”) has introduced a series of reforms to refine the winding-up framework governing Alternative Investment Funds (“AIFs”). Through these changes, SEBI has sought to make the winding-up process more practical and comprehensive, addressing the various issues that arise at the end of a fund’s tenure and improving the overall framework for closure of AIFs.

India's capital markets regulator has rolled out one of its most significant ease-of-doing-business reforms for foreign investors in recent years. The Single Window Automatic and Generalised Access for Trusted Foreign Investors framework, known as SWAGAT-FI, consolidates and simplifies registration for a defined category of low-risk foreign portfolio investors and foreign venture capital investors.

SEBI, through notification dated 03.07.2026, has notified the SEBI (Foreign Venture Capital Investors) (Amendment) Regulations, 2026 (“FVCI Amendment”) which amends the SEBI (Foreign Venture Capital Investors) Regulations, 2000 (“FVCI Regulations”).