Corporate Compliance Service
A company doing business in Nepal answers to more than one regulator. Depending on its activities, it may owe filings and disclosures to the Office of Company Registrar, the Department of Industry, Nepal Rastra Bank, the Securities Board of Nepal, the Inland Revenue Department and the local ward office, sometimes all within the same year. Missing a filing is not a small administrative slip. It can lead to penalties, restrictions on operations and, if left unattended, problems with routine matters such as bank transactions or share transfers.
Our lawyers work in this area regularly and know which obligations genuinely matter for a given business rather than only what appears on paper. Many of our clients operate in heavily regulated sectors where the compliance calendar is long and the cost of a missed deadline is high.
The Compliance Landscape
Most obligations trace back to the Companies Act, 2063 (2006), which requires every registered company, whether private, public, foreign-invested, joint venture or dormant, to keep its records current with the Office of Company Registrar. This includes annual returns on directors, shareholders and capital, audited financial statements, and minutes of board and shareholder meetings. Public and larger private companies carry additional AGM-related duties. Sector-specific rules apply to banking, insurance, telecommunications, securities and hydropower companies, and foreign-invested companies have a further reporting layer under FITTA and Nepal Rastra Bank’s foreign exchange rules.
None of this is difficult in isolation. The challenge is the number of moving parts and how quickly one missed deadline leads to the next.
What We Do
- Licensing and approvals: identifying the licences a business needs and obtaining them.
- Regulatory filings: preparing and submitting documents to the Department of Industry, Office of Company Registrar, Nepal Rastra Bank, Securities Board of Nepal, Inland Revenue Office and local authorities.
- Compliance due diligence: reviewing existing filings and practices, spotting gaps and setting out a practical plan to close them.
- Internal investigations: looking into discrepancies, complaints or regulator red flags before they grow.
- Regulator response: handling questions and inquiries raised by regulators.
- Compliance programmes: designing policies, putting them into practice, monitoring them and training the people responsible.
Staying compliant is about more than avoiding penalties. A company that keeps its filings current protects its legal standing and avoids the expensive last-minute scramble that costs far more than staying on schedule would have.
