Jun 01, 2022
Hot on the heels of the ‘corporate purpose’ and environmental, social and governance (ESG) debates, investor stewardship is the latest buzzword in comparative corporate governance. What started as a domestic regulatory initiative in the United Kingdom in 2010 morphed into a global phenomenon and eventually reached Indian shores. A stewardship code is essentially a principles-based framework, which aids institutional investors in fulfilling their responsibilities, in terms of protecting and enhancing the value of their clients. A corollary of this, meaningful implementation of the stewardship principles also improves the corporate governance practices of the investee companies – institutional investors are required to actively engage as ‘stewards’ in the corporate governance of their portfolio companies. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) floated its stewardship code in 2017 (and revised in 2020) and the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) followed suit in 2018. Most recently, the stewardship code of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) (India’s capital markets regulator) was implemented in July 2020 and the SEBI, through a separate circular dated 5 March 2021, also mandated mutual funds to vote on all resolutions from 1 April 2022 (collectively, the IRDAI, PFRDA and SEBI stewardship codes are referred to as ‘the Indian stewardship codes’). Today, UK-style stewardship codes have been exported to over 20 jurisdictions, and the Indian stewardship codes resonate with the global stewardship movement and the drive towards corporate sustainability and engagement on ESG-related issues. However, while the Indian stewardship codes have made a laudatory start, there is significant scope for improvement, in light of developments in the global stewardship movement. One significant reason why improvements are necessitated is the modelling of the Indian stewardship codes along the lines of the UK code. This modelling has overlooked the differences in cross-jurisdictional shareholding patterns and consequently limited its success – the article explores the structural weaknesses flowing from the transplantation of the UK code to India (a country with a concentrated shareholding pattern).