Regulation 31 - Repeals and savings - Securities and Exchange Board of India (Share Based Employee Benefits) Regulations, 2014

Repeals and savings. 31. (1) Securities and Exchange Board of India (Employee Stock Option Scheme and Employee Stock Purchase Scheme) Guidelines, 1999 are hereby repealed. (2) Notwithstanding such repeal, - (a) prohibition on acquiring securities from the secondary market as provided in SEBI circular CIR/CFD/POLICYCELL/3/2014 dated June 27, 2014 shall continue till the existing schemes are aligned with these regulations; (b) all listed companies having existing schemes to which these regulations apply are required to comply with these regulations in their entirety within one year of the same coming into effect, subject to the following exceptions: (i) trusts holding shares, for the purposes of implementing employee benefits schemes of the company, beyond the permissible limits as provided under these regulations, shall have a period of five years to bring down its holding in shares to such limits; (ii) trusts holding shares, for the purposes of implementing GEBS or RBS, which exceed ten per cent. of the total value of the total assets of the trust(s) as provided under these regulations, shall have a period of five years to bring down its holding in shares to such limits; (iii) for the purposes of sub-regulation (9) of regulation 3 and ensuring compliance with the requirement of maintaining adequate public shareholding, those trusts holding shares of the company which are shown either as promoter or public shareholding, shall be permitted to continue to be shown them as such for a further period of only 1 [three] years; (iv) 2 [trustees of a trust may continue to vote in respect of shares held by such trust for a period of three years, commencing from 28th of October, 2014.] (c) the previous operation of the repealed guidelines or anything duly done or suffered thereunder, any right, privilege, obligation or liability acquired, accrued or incurred under the repealed guidelines, any penalty, forfeiture or punishment incurred in respect of any offence committed against the repealed guidelines, or any investigation, legal proceeding or remedy in respect of any such right, privilege, obligation, liability, penalty, forfeiture or punishment as aforesaid, shall remain unaffected as if the repealed guidelines had never been repealed; (d) anything done or any action taken or purported to have been done or taken including any adjudication, enquiry or investigation commenced or show-cause notice issued under the repealed guidelines prior to such repeal, shall be deemed to have been done or taken under the corresponding provisions of these regulations; and (e) after the repeal of Securities and Exchange Board of India (Employee Stock Option Scheme and Employee Stock Purchase Scheme) Guidelines, 1999, any reference thereto in any other regulations made, guidelines or circulars issued thereunder by the Board shall be deemed to be a reference to the corresponding provisions of these regulations. ******** 1 Subs. by Securities and Exchange Board of India (Share based Employee Benefits) (Amendment) Regulations, 2015 for ― five (w.e.f 18.09.2015) 2 Ins. by Securities and Exchange Board of India (Share based Employee Benefits) (Amendment) Regulations, 2015, Regulation (w.e.f 18.09.2015)