BRSR - Ease of doing business

 Decisions taken by SEBI at its Board meeting held on 18th December, 2024

Ease of doing business with respect to Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report (BRSR)

With a view to facilitate ease of doing business for listed entities and their value chain partners with regard to requirements under BRSR on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) disclosures and its assurance, and introduction of voluntary disclosure on green credits, the Board approved the following:

1 Deferring ESG disclosures for value chain, as well as “assessment or assurance” thereof, by one year. Hence, ESG disclosures for value chain shall apply from FY 2025-26 (as against the current requirement of FY 2024-25) and “assessment or assurance” thereof shall be applicable from FY 2026-27 (as against the current requirement of FY 2025-26).

2 Providing ESG disclosures for value chain shall be “voluntary”, instead of the present requirement of ‘comply-and-explain’.

3 Reducing the scope of value chain to cover the top upstream and downstream partners of a listed entity, individually comprising 2% or more of the listed entity's purchases and sales (by value), respectively, while providing that the listed entity may limit disclosure of value chain to cover 75% of its purchases and sales (by value), respectively.

4 Reporting of previous year numbers will be voluntary in case of first year of reporting of ESG disclosures for value chain.

5 Introduction of a leadership indicator in Principle 6 of BRSR for disclosure of Green Credits generated or procured by the listed entity and its top-10 value chain partners.

6 Substitution of “assurance” with “assessment or assurance” in SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015, regarding BRSR. “Assessment” will be third-party assessment undertaken as per standards to be developed by the Industry Standards Forum (ISF) in consultation with SEBI. This would be applicable for BRSR Core disclosures for listed entities and value chain from FY 2024-25 and FY 2026-27 onwards, respectively.

SEBI would come out with a notification to bring all these into effect. 

PIT Regulations Amendment Dec 2024

 SEBI has vide notification dated 4th December, 2024 amended the SEBI (Prohibition of Insider Trading) Regulations 2015 as follows

1) The definition of "connected person" has been slightly amended to delete the words "between himself and the company" in respect of professional or business relationship between the connected person and the company. 

2) The word "immediate" has been deleted with reference to relative of the connected person. 

3) Two more categories of persons have been added as connected persons, viz

“(k). a firm or its partner or its employee in which a connected person specified in sub-clause (i) of
clause (d) is also a partner; or
(l). a person sharing household or residence with a connected person specified in sub-clause (i) of
clause (d);”

4) The Note below the definition of "Immediate Relative" in Reg 2(1)(f) has been deleted. 

5) In the Note below Reg 2(1)(d) "Immediate relatives" has been replaced with "Relatives".

6) In the Note below Reg 2(1)(g) has been slightly amended to insert "the manner in which one came into possession" instead of "how one came into possession". 

7) A new clause has been added to define relative in (clause hb of Reg 2(1))

“(hc) “relative” shall mean the following:
(i) spouse of the person;
(ii) parent of the person and parent of its spouse;
(iii) sibling of the person and sibling of its spouse;
(iv) child of the person and child of its spouse;
(v) spouse of the person listed at sub-clause (iii); and
(vi) spouse of the person listed at sub-clause (iv)
NOTE: It is intended that the relatives of a “connected person” too become connected persons for the
purpose of these regulations. It is a rebuttable presumption that a connected person had UPSI.”