Meet the expert
Company Secretary & Compliance Officer
Global Horizons Capital Advisors (IFSC) Private Limited — an IFSCA-licensed investment banker
Published in The Chartered Accountant (Jun 2025, Jan 2025, Mar 2024) and Chartered Secretary (Aug 2023)
Prashant Kumar is a seasoned Company Secretary and corporate governance strategist with more than 13 years of experience advising large corporates, promoter-led groups and global businesses on compliance, regulatory risk and board governance. In GIFT IFSC, the IFSCA regime is his day job rather than a research topic.
Meet the expert
Company Secretary & Compliance Officer, Global Horizons Capital Advisors (IFSC) Private Limited — an IFSCA-licensed investment banker
Prashant Kumar is a seasoned Company Secretary and corporate governance strategist with more than 13 years of experience advising large corporates, promoter-led groups and global businesses on compliance, regulatory risk and board governance. In GIFT IFSC, the IFSCA regime is his day job rather than a research topic.
His IFSC work spans IFSCA frameworks for finance companies, fund managers and capital market intermediaries, FEMA and overseas investment structuring, and AML/CFT compliance. That is the same ground a Fund Management Entity crosses from registration to its first scheme launch: IFSCA eligibility and KMP conditions, scheme filings, FEMA for Indian sponsors and investors, and AML/CFT on investor onboarding.
Before GIFT IFSC, he led mergers, restructurings, IPO readiness, high-stakes investigations, and proceedings before NFRA, MCA, SEBI and SAT. He held senior roles at Woodland, IndoBevs Group and Deesan Group, and spent nearly a decade as Partner at Pratham Legal.
A Fellow member of ICSI, he is co-author of Audit Under Fire and a regular contributor to The Chartered Accountant and The Chartered Secretary on corporate law, governance and regulatory reform.
Peer journals of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and the Institute of Company Secretaries of India.
Classifies FDI disputes as contractual, regulatory and investor-state; examines BITs, FTAs, forum selection, consent to arbitration and sovereign immunity through cases such as Yukos v. Russia and Philip Morris v. Uruguay; and makes the case for mediation.
How CSR under Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013 can drive skill development: the legal framework, CSR committees and spending, the case for skilling, and the challenges of measuring long-term impact.
Patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, designs and GIs; the international treaty framework (Berne, Paris, TRIPS, PCT, Madrid, Hague) and India's IP statutes; and IP as a strategic business asset.
A decade of CCI merger remedies: the 22 combinations approved with structural, behavioural or hybrid remedies, gun-jumping penalties including Amazon/Future Coupons, and the Delhi High Court's ruling in Eaton v. CCI.
Co-authored with Nikita Sharma
Category choice, eligibility and net worth planning, KMP selection and certification, and the application on SWIT through to the certificate of registration.
Ask about thisPlacement memorandum and offer document filings for VC, restricted, retail, SSF, ETF, PMS, REIT/InvIT and FIF structures, with the fiduciary and service-provider line-up.
Ask about thisA working compliance calendar, quarterly reporting to IFSCA, records, KMP changes, annual reports and board support.
Ask about thisA clause-by-clause review of what the 2026 amendment changes for your FME and schemes, and the documents to update.
Ask about thisA review of books, records, policies and evidence before an IFSCA inspection, with a gap list and remediation.
Ask about thisSetting up and reviewing the FME website or webpage disclosures under IFSCA's circular on FME websites.
Ask about thisCode of conduct, conflicts, valuation, gift and entertainment, business continuity and other policies, approved and recorded as the Regulations require.
Ask about thisSessions for compliance, operations and fund teams on the FM Regulations, built on this portal's material.
Ask about thisHow this will work
Three simple steps. You always know what is being done, by when, and on what terms.