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    Company Secretarial & Compliance

    Company secretarial compliance is keeping an Indian company's statutory filings, board records and regulatory obligations current, which is a continuous discipline rather than a year-end exercise.

    Capability

    How we help with Company Secretarial & Compliance

    Filing on time does not mean you are compliant.

    1. Establish the full obligation list

      Every filing, register, meeting and disclosure the entity owes, by its structure, its shareholding and its sector. Most companies discover obligations they did not know applied.

    2. Put it on a calendar with an owner

      Dates, responsibilities and lead times, so a filing is prepared in advance rather than remembered on its deadline.

    3. Keep the statutory records current

      Registers, minutes and resolutions maintained as events happen. These are the first documents examined in diligence and the ones most often reconstructed under pressure.

    4. Handle the events that create obligations

      A funding round, a new director, an ESOP grant or a change in shareholding each triggers filings with their own clocks. We run those alongside the transaction rather than after it.

    Filing on time does not mean you are compliant.

    FAQ

    Questions founders ask about Company Secretarial & Compliance

    What does a company secretary actually do?

    A company secretary keeps a company compliant with the Companies Act and the regulations that apply to it: filings with the Registrar of Companies, board and general meeting procedure, statutory registers, and the disclosures that come with funding, share transfers and director changes.

    Does a private limited company need a company secretary?

    A full-time company secretary is required above a paid-up capital threshold. Below it, the obligations still exist and still have deadlines, which is why most growing companies use a practising professional rather than hiring one.

    What happens if filings are late?

    Additional fees accrue per day and continue accruing, and persistent default can lead to director disqualification and to the company being struck off. In a funding context the more immediate cost is diligence: late filings are visible on the public record and invite questions.

    Is compliance separate from accounting?

    They are different disciplines with a shared dependency. Secretarial compliance is about corporate law and governance; accounting is about the numbers. Several filings draw on the financial statements, so the two have to be sequenced together.

    We are expanding overseas. Does this cover that?

    Cross-border adds FEMA reporting, transfer pricing and the filings of the jurisdiction being entered. The Indian obligations do not reduce; they gain counterparts, and the sequencing between them is where most of the difficulty sits.

    Our US–India cross-border desk

    What our research says about Company Secretarial & Compliance

    Compliance failures rarely fail a deal because of any single missing filing. They fail deals because they cumulatively erode investor confidence in the founder's operating discipline. And operating discipline is what investors are actually buying.

    CS Manavi Arora, in Why Compliance Is a Capital Issue, Not a Legal One

    Under Rule 16 and Rule 16A of the Deposit Rules, companies must file e-Form DPT-3 annually, disclosing outstanding loans and money received that is not treated as a deposit, including that director's loan you gave in good faith.

    CS Manavi Arora, in Director Loan to Your Startup: Why It Might Not Be Legal

    Minutes are not a transcript and they are not a formality. They are the evidence that a decision was properly taken, and they are read years later by people who were not in the room.

    CS Manavi Arora, in Running a board that investors trust

    A year you did not file is not one default. It is AOC-4, plus MGT-7, plus DPT-3 if applicable, plus MSME-1 twice, plus a lapsed KYC for each director.

    CS Manavi Arora, in The annual compliance map for a private limited company

    The result routinely exceeds anything the LLP ever earned. And it happens because the business was dormant, not despite it.

    CS Manavi Arora, in LLP compliance: what is different, and what it costs to ignore

    The founder is not careless in this story. There was simply nobody whose job it was to notice.

    CS Manavi Arora, in Your ESOP pool may not legally exist

    Further reading

    Guides and downloads on Company Secretarial & Compliance

    E-books and masterclass material from the SRF library, free to download.

    The people behind Company Secretarial & Compliance

    Company Secretarial & Compliance is run by the studio team: one multidisciplinary team whose pods work in tandem, matched to the sector and the stage the company is in.

    CS Manavi Arora

    Compliance: Company Secretary pod

    Led by CS Manavi Arora

    Lead - Company Secretarial, Compliance & Fundraise Advisory. Ensures legal and governance compliance.

    See the pod structure
    Studio TeamThe operators, investors and builders who run engagements end to end.Meet them

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