The recent Symposium on Arbitration conducted by the National Law School of India Review saw the much-maligned interventionist role of the judiciary receiving support from leading practitioners, including Senior Advocates Arvind Datar and Gourab Banerji. Two of the most heavily criticized judicial interventions are (a) holding that the Chief Justice carries out a judicial function in determining...
Doha Legal Conference: 29-31 May, 2009
Readers, particularly those in the Middle East, may wish to note an interesting event that is scheduled to be held in Doha between the 29th and 31st of May, 2009. The Qatar Law Forum has as its theme the Global Commitment to the Rule of Law. The three day conference will cover a wide variety of issues and attendees include those from the legal community, 13 Chief Justices, as well as leading...
Amendments to Equity Listing Agreement
On April 24, 2009, SEBI issued a circular amending certain provisions of the Equity Listing Agreement that all listed companies are required to comply with. The key amendments are listed below: – A uniform procedure has been created for dealing with shares that lay unclaimed after public issues; – The notice period for all corporate actions such as dividend, bonus, etc. has been...
JUDICIAL ENTRENCHMENT OF THE BHATIA INTERNATIONAL DECISION
Recently, in the case of Tamil Nadu Electricity Board v. Videocon Power Ltd., a two-judge bench of the Madras High Court had occasion to deal with foreign arbitral awards, and the applicability of Part I of the Arbitration Act (which deals with domestic arbitration) to such awards. It may be recalled that in the cases of Bhatia International and Satyam, the Supreme Court had held that Part I of...
CSR in India: Some Theory and Practice
Experts in the area of corporate social responsibility (CSR) have argued that CSR is not just philanthropy by companies. It should involve the right combination of enhancing long-term shareholder value and protecting the interests of various other stakeholders (such as employees, creditors, consumers and the society in general). In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, R. Venugopal and...
Lock-in for Realty FDI
Press Note 2 of 2005, which deals with foreign direct investment (FDI) in the real estate sector, imposes a three-year lock in foreign investments. It states: Original investment cannot be repatriated before a period of three years from completion of minimum capitalization. However, the investor may be permitted to exit earlier with prior approval of the Government through the FIPB The question...
Independent Directors in the Post-Satyam Era
The Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) appears to have given a clean chit to Satyam’s independent directors, as it was found that the board was not involved in the fraudulent conduct and that they were kept in the dark. Much has already been written about the difficulties of placing too much reliance on the role of independent directors in corporate governance. Independent directors spend...
Spiralling Effects of the Financial Crisis
(The global financial crisis is now at a stage where the debate is transcending from one of decline in bottomlines of companies, falls in stock markets, tightening of credit and the like to wider issues that have greater social ramifications. If these issues are not dealt with appropriately, it could lead to disastrous consequences. In this behalf, one our readers Courtney Phillips sends us the...
Updates: Bits of Interest
Very often, we come across interesting pieces of information pertaining to topics covered on this Blog that may not necessarily require in-depth analysis or discussion. At the same time, such information may be of relevance to some of our readers. In order to bridge this gap, we have provisionally included a section on this Blog (please see the right hand side of the page) titled Bits of...
Competition Commission: Delays in Merger Control
Although the Competition Commission is expected to become functional soon, it appears from press reports that its role pertaining to merger control will commence only in due course and not immediately. The draft of the Competition Commission of India (Combinations) Regulations (discussed earlier on this Blog) is still subject to discussion and finalisation. Until then, M&A transactions...
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