LARGE UNLISTED PUBLIC COMPANIES WILL HAVE TO FILE QUARTERLY , – COMPAN...

BIG UNLISTED COMPANIES : MCA MAY
ASK FOR MORE FREQUENT FILING OF THEIR FINANCIAL STATEMENTS.

Big unlisted firms: MCA may ask for
more frequent filing of financial statements. “The move does allow the
companies regulator to keep a timely check on movement of financial assertions
of large unlisted companies. ... However, private unlisted companies furnish
financial data to the RoC only via their annual statements.

Due to the recent amendments to
the Companies Act 2013, MCA may direct the large
unlisted public companies like Flipcart , Patanjali , Zomato like quarterly ,
half-yearly results filed by listed companies now.  Thus , these big unlisted public companies
have to file financial statements more frequently with Registrar of Companies,
(ROC) than the annual periodicity now.

The rationale behind this move
is to enable early fraud detection and statutory compliance.

At present , the listed
companies have to submit financial results annually to ROC and to upload their
financial results on a quarterly basis on their websites , to stock exchanges ,
under SEBI LODR.

However , private companies furnish
their financial statements to the ROC only through their annual statements .

Companies (Amendment)
 Act 2020 provided for preparation of financial results of prescribed
classes of unlisted companies on a periodical basis.

These will be required to be
audited or at least to be reviewed by an external auditing professional.

MCA sources informed that MCA
will call a meeting of the stakeholders later this September 2020 to discuss
about the reporting periodicity and the classes of companies that would be asked
to file financial statements more regularly.

The criterial could include the
turnover or paid up capital or a combination of both. MCA wants to use this
information for the better compliance and to bring in more transparency in functioning
of unlisted companies , especially large unlisted companies .

In 2011-2012 , MCA introduced
XBRL. One of the features of XBRL was early fraud detection it allowed. Besides
, listed companies having paid up capital of Rs 5 Crore or above and those with
the turnover of Rs 100 Crore or above on to file information in XBRL. NBFCs ,
IFCs and companies engaged in the banking and insurance sector are exempted
from the filing of financial statements under XBRL.

XBRL has not been as effective
in early fraud detection as was expected. Intension was that as income tax and
sales tax filings/ data , the MCA will have a similar facility to track
companies.

The movement does allow the
companies regulator to keep a timely check on movement of financial assertions
of large unlisted companies . The amendment will further strengthen / early
detection of fraud early capabilities of the companies regulator .