Board Meetings By Video Conferencing – Important Things To Note

By Sweta Rao¹

Under the Companies Act, 1956, board meetings conducted by audio visual means (AVMs) were not specifically recognised. Thereafter, AVM was first recognised by the Companies Act, 2013,² which not only recognised the concept but also indicated fairly elaborate provisions around its implementation. The need for AVMs was further pronounced by the COVID-19 pandemic. This article identifies the key watchpoints from a compliance standpoint for AVMs below.

1. Video conferencing should enable all persons participating in the meeting to participate effectively and to communicate concurrently with each other. They should also be able to hear and see each other clearly during the course of the meeting.³ This can be achieved fairly easily with various kinds of online meeting tools available, namely, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google Meet, BlueJeans, among others. It is important to note that the communication between directors should not involve an intermediary⁴, i.e.